


God Eater: Universitas

by SHIOCON



Series: God Eater "Sigmaverse" [4]
Category: God Eater (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 16:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 22,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14336061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHIOCON/pseuds/SHIOCON
Summary: In the aftermath of God Eater ∑ and following the events of Rage Burst, the world was peaceful.  Well, as peaceful as a post-apocalyptic hell dominated by man-eating beasts can be.Life proceeded as normal... until, on New Year's Eve, 2080, the arrival of a mysterious girl on the doorstep of the Far East Branch set in motion a chain of events that would shake the foundation of creation itself to its core.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> READ UP TO (the end of) CHAPTER 57 FIRST. Then, stop and read God Eater: Reverie for a Dying Star. After THAT, finish God Eater: Universitas.

New Year’s Eve at Fenrir was always a cause for celebration. With the passing of another year into the next, it signified that humanity had survived another year. Another year’s victory against the Aragami, and the promise of another after that.

 

December 31st, 2080 was no exception. It had been six years since the Blood squad had defeated Rachel Claudius and put an end to her plans to destroy the world in the Devouring Apocalypse once and for all, and since then, those involved — and those not — had gone their separate ways. Now, Paylor Sakaki, still the (acting?) head of the Fenrir Far East Branch, was reclining in his chair as the clock ticked down to the new year. He had been through much in his job at Fenrir, from the events surrounding former Director Johannes von Schicksal to those surrounding Rachel Claudius, and much more besides. Life was peaceful here, save for the occasional report of an Aragami attack. A new generation of God Eaters had since stepped up to fill the shoes left by the old guard — and while some of the former Blood squad remained, and Cradle still operated, those who had come after had wasted no time in making a name for themselves… but that is a story for another time.

Now, as Sakaki sat back in his chair reminiscing about the days of old, a knock came at his door. It was Soma Schicksal, member of Cradle and veteran God Eater of the Far East Branch who was visiting the Den to celebrate and ring in the new year.

“Aren’t you coming down to join us?” Soma inquired. Everyone was gathered in the lounge for a new year’s feast, and Sakaki was the only one who had yet to arrive. “You ARE the Far East Branch’s director, after all. Everyone’s waiting for you."

Sakaki cracked his neck and sighed. “Thank you, Soma,” he answered. “Head on down without me. I’ll be right there — I was just catching up with an old friend.”

“Whatever you say, Chief.” Soma turned and exited the room, leaving Sakaki alone with his thoughts.

“Johannes…” Sakaki mused aloud. “Were that you alive to see this era of peace…”

As Sakaki stood up to head towards the door and to the lounge, he noticed his wall clock was steadily approaching midnight, with only a minute to go. It was altogether likely that they’d ring in the new year without him… Nonetheless, he exited his office and headed towards the elevator.

And as the clocks in Fenrir’s Far East Branch struck midnight, a chime rang out —

 

— and she arrived.


	2. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The arrival of a mysterious girl throws the Branch into chaos and brings a number of questions to light...

The alarms at the Den were ringing off the hook. Something had breached the branch’s defenses — and whatever it was, it had appeared at the precise moment of midnight on January 1st, 2081, and it had done so without being detected by any of the branch’s radar and other detection systems.  
Was it an Aragami? A stray human from an outlying settlement? Whatever it was, the highest concern was how it had managed to breach every form of defense the branch had to offer, only setting off the alarm that triggered when something physically touched one of the branch’s outermost gates — and something of that level of urgency warranted only the most urgent form of suppression in response.

As Soma and the others readied themselves for possible combat, tension was high. Either they were about to face something so weak that the sensors didn’t even pick it up, or they were about to find themselves face-to-face with something so unfathomably powerful that it would crush them without a second thought before doing the same to the base and everyone who lived within.

No matter what, they could not let that happen. And so the strongest God Eaters currently at the Fenrir Far East Branch departed forth through the northwestern front gate of the Den —

— but what they found was no Aragami.

No, what they found awaiting them was no harbinger of destruction, but rather an ordinary girl, clad in a red uniform and sprawled out on the ground.

Well, ordinary insofar as a mysterious visitor carrying a brilliant green God Arc could be, at least.

Somehow, this girl with hair the color of the sky and eyes of deepest emerald had slipped through their defenses and ended up as close to their gates as was physically possible. How, of course, was a matter for another time, as this girl was very clearly injured and required urgent medical care. 

“Kota,” commanded Soma, “I need you to radio for a stretcher immediately. I’ll stay here with Emil and Erina to perform emergency medical procedures until the medical team gets here. Can I count on you?”

Kota nodded before pulling out a radio and calling in the medical team. Meanwhile, Soma approached the girl and laid her out, bandaging her wounds as Emil listened for a pulse and Erina administered a recovery ampoule.

With immediate danger out of the way, it was only a few minutes until the branch’s medical team arrived and loaded the girl onto the stretcher along with her God Arc before hurrying back inside, with Soma and the rest following close behind.

No matter how Soma looked at it, something just didn’t add up. It should have been physically impossible for anything to slip through the branch’s defenses — land, air, and subterranean modes of approach were all accounted for, and their surveillance network extended out well over a mile past the base’s outer walls.

So how could she have —

“No… that’s not possible,” Soma muttered, a shiver overtaking his body. Perhaps it was the cold… or perhaps it was a sign of what was to come…


	3. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl—Idenn—awakens in unfamiliar territory. As she gets her bearings, Soma voices his concerns...

_Darkness.  
And before that, a struggle, a deadly, decisive battle._

_She had engaged... him in battle, she remembered, and after a long and tiring exchange of blows…_

_What?_

_What happened after that?_

_She had no idea; everything was a blank._

_But now, amidst the darkness, a piercing light illuminated her surroundings as a voice called out to her…_

_“…pen y… es…”_

_“Open yo… yes…”_

_“Open your eyes!”_

***

Awaking on an unfamiliar bed, the first thing the girl saw was a similarly unfamiliar ceiling.

The next, the faces of people staring down at her. No one she knew, to be sure.

She eased herself upright and looked around. From what she could gather, she was in… an infirmary? And the people around her were… 

No matter how hard she tried, she could not remember a thing.

Instinctively, she reached for her side, but what she sought — her blade, which she always kept nearby — was not there. Instantly, the girl assumed a defensive position, until one of the people nearby spoke up.

“If you’re looking for your God Arc, it’s over here.” The man, his skin tanned and his hair silver, motioned behind him, where the girl’s blade lay against a wall. “We carried it in with you when we found you outside. My name’s Soma Schicksal, by the way. And you are…?”

The girl stared at her nearby God Arc for a brief moment before blinking and turning to face Soma, a single phrase escaping her lips.

“My… my name? What… is my name…?”

Another figure in the room, a young man with reddish-brown hair and a white uniform similar to the man who had spoken previously.

“Yeah, your name,” came the voice of this second individual, who identified himself as Kota Fujiki. “Do you… not remember your name?”

The girl merely looked at Kota blankly. “My… name…”

Soma interjected. “At any rate, you do have a God Arc… I’d like to conduct an test to determine your capabilities as a God Eater. Perhaps we might be able to figure out what Branch you came from. Here,” he exclaimed, picking up the girl’s God Arc and handing it to her. “Take this.”

However, the moment the girl’s hand closed around the God Arc’s hilt, she winced as though in pain and collapsed to the bed, rolling off onto the ground as Soma and Kota rushed to intercept her fall.

“Are you alright, miss?!” shouted a young woman who identified herself as Erina der Vogelweid. “Is anything hurt?”

But the girl merely stood up and dusted herself off.

“My name…” she began. “My name… is Idenn.”

“Idenn, huh? That’s a pretty name. Is it German?” came a reply from Erina. “I’m German myself, so…”

“I do not know,” came Idenn’s calm reply. “But I must ask — is Isaac Feldman still here?”

Kota looked at her, puzzled. “The former head of intelligence? Sorry, but… he left five years ago for some reason, and nobody’s heard from him since. Supposedly, Director Sakaki keeps in touch, but who knows how true that is?”

“At any rate,” interjected Soma, “I would like you to get down to the testing facility for that aptitude test I mentioned. Everyone, you are dismissed. I will follow you down with Idenn here shortly.”

Kota, Erina, and the others nodded before filing out of the infirmary. Idenn made a move to follow… but found herself blocked by Soma’s God Arc, a massive silver blade with a serrated edge much like a saw.

“Now just you hold on,” Soma interrupted, a stern tone permeating his voice. “Too many things don’t add up. You managed to bypass every single one of our defenses to get here, you have a God Arc despite apparently not being able to recall what Branch you’re from… honestly, this whole amnesia thing seems awfully convenient. And what’s more, you somehow knew former Director Feldman despite no records of you existing anywhere at this Branch.”

Idenn could feel the tension in the air, a palpable sensation that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. She readied her God Arc in preparation for a battle.

“Idenn,” Soma stated, “who are you?”


	4. Alliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions reach their boiling point as Soma moves to defend the Far East Branch against this "intruder"...

“Idenn… who are you?”  
The mysterious girl known only as Idenn stood across from Soma in the infirmary. Both of them had their God Arcs drawn, prepared to engage in combat should the situation warrant it.

Soma had his God Arc held at his side, the blade angled back in preparation for a swing. Idenn followed suit, readying her God Arc next to her head in preparation for a thrust.

Moments passed, then minutes, with neither of them moving an inch. Both of their battle instincts were sharpened to a finely-honed point, and neither was about to make the first move in a situation where doing so could spell death.

However, just when the tension had reached a critical point, Soma lowered his God Arc and merely laughed.

“I can tell you’re pretty good,” Soma explained, “and battle instincts that sharp can’t be acquired except by fighting something as tough as Aragami. Plus, I could tell…” Soma held out his hand. “…that you restrained yourself in order not to damage the infirmary. You’re clearly much more than you care to… or can… let on. For the time being, I’d like you to take that aptitude test, but after that, as much as I’d like to have you at Cradle, how would you like to put your skills to good use working with my friends here at the Far East Branch? At least until you can recover your memory, of course.”

Idenn looked at Soma skeptically, lowering her God Arc after a moment of hesitation.

“I suppose I don’t stand to lose anything from such a partnership,” Idenn replied. “And besides, if I stay with you guys, I might be able to find out more about where I came from. I’m in.”

She reached out her hand, returning Soma’s offered hand for a handshake.

“One thing still puzzles me, though,” continued Soma. “How, exactly, did you know about Feldman?”

Idenn stood for a moment.

“You know,” she began, “I’m not quite sure myself. All I know is that as soon as I touched my God Arc, that was what my mind screamed at me to ask about. Perhaps this has something to do with my past?”

“It’s altogether likely,” replied Soma. “You get down to the testing room. I’ll look into Feldman’s activities over the last five years and get to you in a few.” With that, the silver-haired man turned and exited the infirmary, leaving Idenn by herself.

She did not know why she was here, or how…

…but she would find out, no matter the cost.


	5. Lifespring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn has settled into life at the Far East Branch, but a sudden arrival from parts unknown snaps her to attention and dredges up some unpleasant memories.

“That’s it, that’s it! Close in just like that!”  
On this day, Idenn found herself before a Hannibal, which assailed the girl with fiery breath and claw attacks. Kota Fujiki had accompanied her on this mission, which was supposed to serve as a rehab of sorts to get Idenn back in full fighting form.

As Idenn stood, God Arc at the ready, the Hannibal summoned forth blades of flame on its hands and slashed at Idenn repeatedly. With movements as light as a hummingbird, Idenn ducked and dodged out of the way of the Hannibal’s combo, slicing at the Aragami’s body repeatedly.

One thing Kota had noticed was that Idenn’s God Arc’s blade form did not seem to deal any damage. The bright green edge carved through Idenn’s target yet did not seem to have any noticeable effect on the Hannibal. Kota had heard about this years ago — it was a high-level weapon called the Oracle Sword, designed with Oracle intake technology first and foremost in mind. With an Oracle Sword, one could intake Oracle energy at an incredibly fast rate, putting it all into bullet attacks. Indeed, Kota was looking forward to seeing what Idenn could do with such a weapon.

Fortunately, he did not have to wait long to find out.

“Kota, hit the deck!” Idenn shouted a warning in Kota’s direction, then switched to her gun, a blast gun of dark gray steel —

— and fired.

The area was blanketed with explosions at a nonstop rate. Kota had to cover his ears due to the deafening sound, and he could not easily discern what was going on for all of the flashes.

But when the firing stopped and the dust cleared, all that was there was Idenn standing before the corpse of what used to be a Hannibal. Switching to her blade form, Idenn devoured the beast’s Oracle cells as Kota approached her.

“Great work, Idenn,” Kota spoke. “Finish up here and let’s head back.”

Idenn nodded, retracting her God Arc’s predator form and turning to head back to the Far East Branch.

Still, though… something was bothering her about this mission. It almost seemed too easy, as if there was something she had overlooked —

— and then it arrived.

Faster than the eye could see, a green blur leapt from out of nowhere and crashed in front of the two of them, sending up a cloud of dust. What emerged from the impact site was unlike any Aragami Kota had seen, a Hannibal with two gigantic wings of brilliant green flame and green accents all over its body.

“What… what is this…?” Kota stammered, readying his own God Arc for battle… but Idenn immediately tensed up, her hair bristling with bloodlust.

Something about this Aragami set off something within Idenn, something that caused her to lash out and dash towards the Hannibal.

“You… it’s you…! You’re the one who…!!!”

Running forwards with all her might, Idenn leapt at the Hannibal and drove her blade directly into its core. It reared back, letting out a blood-curdling roar as the wings on its back flared out with fiery rage.

“I won’t let you hurt anyone else, you monsteeeeerrrr!” came Idenn’s yell. As she drove her blade further and further into the Hannibal’s core, she and her God Arc began to emanate a green light, which grew brighter and brighter along with a faint hum that increased in intensity.

“Go back to where you came from, you bastaaaaaaarddddd! LIFESPRING!!!”

As Idenn shouted those words, a bright flash shone forth from her God Arc —

— and the Hannibal was gone, along with a perfectly hemispherical area of land around Idenn’s position.

Idenn fell to the ground, panting, as Kota approached her.

“Idenn… what just happened…?”


	6. Hannibal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn provides some answers about herself, but the question of what that green Hannibal is weighs on everyone's minds...

“Idenn, Kota…” Sakaki spoke, the three of them gathered in Anagura’s briefing room. “Give me your report.”  
“Well,” Kota began, still a bit shaken, “Idenn here took out the Hannibal mentioned in the mission briefing, but then, as we went to return home, another Hannibal appeared, only this one wasn’t anything like any Hannibal subspecies we’d ever seen.”

Sakaki was intrigued. “Go on…”

This time, Idenn spoke up. “It was larger than normal, for one, and it shone with bright green flames all over its body, with two giant wings of green fire instead of the usual six small flames.”

“We didn’t get a chance to study it, though,” continued Kota, “because as soon as it showed up, Idenn just lunged at it, stabbed its core with her God Arc, and, well…”

“It’s called Lifespring,” interjected Idenn. “I don’t quite know how it works, or perhaps I merely do not remember, but it lets me draw massive amounts of Oracle energy into myself, then let it loose as a concentrated point of ultra-dense gravity to suck in everything around me. I only just remembered how to use it as that Hannibal appeared, but I was successfully able to repel the threat. That is the end of our briefing.”

“Interesting,” came Sakaki’s reply. “We will have to do further study on this Lifespring of yours over further missions. In the meantime, I will tentatively designate this new species of Hannibal the Boundary Hannibal. If you encounter any more, be sure to capture a shot of it for our records. You are dismissed.”

As Kota and Idenn left the briefing room, the latter looked down at her hand, deep in thought.

What exactly was this Lifespring power of hers? How had that Boundary Hannibal gotten there?

There were too many questions… questions that lacked answers.

But Idenn would get to the bottom of this… no matter what.


	7. Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn tries to use Lifespring once more... but she gets a bit more than she bargained for.

Three days had passed. Idenn sat in her room, still mulling over the recent encounter with the Boundary Hannibal. Why had she known, or rather, remembered it? It felt as though the Boundary Hannibal was tied to her past in some way, but… what was it, again? Try as she might, she just couldn’t remember.   
Oh well, though. No point in straining herself.

Idenn stood up and made for the elevator. Today, she was to take part in a training exercise with the purpose of trying to replicate and examine in more detail her Lifespring technique. Perhaps, by discerning its true nature, Idenn would be able to find out where she came from, or how she got there.

***

“Alright now,” came the voice of Hibari Takeda, an operator working for the Far East Branch who provided support on missions. Today, she was overseeing Idenn’s training exercise, guiding her along as she attempted to replicate her Lifespring technique she used on the Boundary Hannibal… but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it to work. No matter how many times she stabbed the training dummy Aragami, nothing happened; no energy was emitted, no matter absorption occurred. It was frustrating, to say the least.

“Try again, Idenn,” Hibari called out over the speakers. “One more time."

Idenn sighed, exasperated. “But I can’t, dammit! I can’t get this to work! No matter how many times I try and, I don’t know, call upon my hidden inner strength or something, absolutely nothing happens!” Idenn kicked at the ground, utterly frustrated by her own powerlessness.

“Calm down, Idenn,” came Hibari’s response. “I guess… try remembering how you felt at the moment you activated the technique before? If you tap into your previous mental state, you might be able to put yourself in a state where you can use Lifespring again.”

Hibari had a point, Idenn thought.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Idenn closed her eyes, concentrating on diving deep within herself and recalling how she felt staring down the Boundary Hannibal, the rage suffusing her body and only the desire to destroy her foe present at the front of her mind—

Suddenly, Idenn’s God Arc lit up with a brilliant green radiance, bathing the training facility in its glow. She’d done it.

“Great job, Idenn!” exclaimed Hibari. “Now, stab the training dummy and let loose with all your might!”

Steeling herself, Idenn charged forth and thrust her God Arc into the training dummy, absorbing its Oracle energy in a flowing stream as the blade’s brilliance increased in intensity, until, suddenly—

—a flash, and then nothing.

The training dummy was gone, along with a perfectly carved-out hemispherical section of the floor. She had successfully activated Lifespring, and drawn the surrounding matter into her gravitational singularity.

However, as both Idenn and Hibari immediately noticed, that wasn’t all she had done.

In the center of the crater was a human, a young man who looked to be about 19, wearing a red-and-white scarf and a black jacket over a red shirt beneath. His short hair was black and he wore a pair of angular black half-frame glasses.

And at his side, a God Arc, a red short blade with a curved edge.

Idenn stood there, mouth agape. She had sent matter away using Lifespring before, but this? 

What had just happened?


	8. Ken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new arrival fills the assembled God Eaters in on his situation—and in doing so answers a very critical question.

“Where am… wait, this is the training room of the Far East Branch!”  
The young man who appeared before Idenn in the wake of her Lifespring appeared to be around Idenn’s age, perhaps a bit younger. He was very clearly a God Eater… perhaps he had something to do with Idenn’s past?

“Hibari.” Sakaki’s voice crackled to life over the speakers. “I’ll run a check on this one. It’s HIGHLY unlikely that he’s also some unidentified God Eater like our friend Idenn, so with any luck, he’ll show up in our records.”

“What… what do you mean? It’s me, Ken! I’m a God Eater of the Far East Branch! But… this doesn’t make sense. I was fighting Rachel, and… how did I get here?”

Everyone present gasped upon hearing the announcement from the young man who referred to himself as Ken.

“Wait… Yes, yes, I remember!” exclaimed Sakaki. “You were a part of the Far East Branch as one of our most powerful God Eaters! But… that can’t be. That was years ago… and you should be…”

Ken straightened himself out and dusted himself off. “At any rate,” he began, “I’m… I’m free? I’m finally free from that place…?”

“Ken,” interjected Sakaki, “I don’t know what’s going on, but please, rest yourself and then come to my office. I don’t know where you’ve been all these years, or why you still appear to be little over the nineteen years of age you were when you served here, but…”

“Wait, hold on,” Ken interrupted. “‘All these years?’ ‘When you served here?’ What the hell do you mean?! And you, Sakaki, why do you look so… so old?”

Sakaki could be heard sighing. “It looks like we’ve got some catching up to do. Idenn, this training exercise is over. Return to your room… and Ken, head to the lounge. The two of you should come to my office in two hours.”

Ken and Idenn nodded, the two of them leaving the training facility.

“So,” Ken began, turning to Idenn, “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“It’s Idenn,” she replied.

“Idenn, huh? I didn’t know there was someone like you here at the Far East Branch. I certainly don’t recognize you, at least.” Ken stopped for a moment, then spoke up. “Come to think of it, Sakaki did say something about ‘all these years’… If my suspicions are correct…” Ken paused once more. 

“Idenn, what year is it?”

Idenn looked back at Ken with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean, ‘what year is it?’ It’s January of 2081.”

All the color drained from Ken’s face as those words hit him like a Kongou’s fist to the gut. 

Somehow, he didn’t know how, he’d been brought… _into the future?_


	9. Catching Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn and Sakaki fill Ken in on what's been going on, having arrived at some answers of her own.

“Alright,” Sakaki began, “run that by me again?”  
Sakaki had Ken and Idenn in his office. In light of Ken’s sudden appearance at Fenrir’s Far East Branch in the year 2081, displaced temporally from his home timeline, new truths had come to light regarding Idenn’s past and her current situation.

“Okay, so, remember back in 2074 when we took out Rachel Claudius?” Ken began recounting his past to those present.

“I was not Director at the time, but yes, I do remember hearing of that,” answered Sakaki. “You and the members of Blood pursued her up the Helix Tree and destroyed her Singularity form, freeing Julius Visconti from her grasp and resulting in the reconstitution of Romeo Leoni’s body. What of it?”

“Well,” Ken continued, “in the interest of keeping this short and to the point, a lot of stuff happened after that. Turns out Rachel wasn’t exactly dead, and I ended up fighting her again atop the Helix Tree. After that, well…”

Ken paused.

“Next thing I knew, boom, there I was in the training grounds. And if what you’re telling me is correct, I was brought into the future?! How, exactly, is that?”

“I can explain that,” interjected Idenn. “I have a… power called Lifespring, a technique that converts Oracle energy into gravitational energy and creates a gravitational singularity that pulls in and erases matter around me. Your arrival here, however, has taught me two things: one, that the erased matter is sent through time, and two, that it can apparently work in reverse, randomly pulling things from other points in spacetime to the here and now using my Lifespring as a conduit point. Sakaki, do you think this means I could have come from the past?”

“Well…” Sakaki began. “At first, that was what I thought, so I ran a check on the records of all Fenrir branches, but no mention of your name was found. As far as Fenrir is concerned, ‘Idenn’ never existed.”

Idenn sighed in exasperation. “Then… do you think that means I could have—“

“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, Idenn,” interjected Sakaki. “Pending further research, I think it’s a bit early to consider THAT possibility. At the present, I think it would befit us to continue operating as normal. Ken, Idenn, you are dismissed. Remain on standby and await further orders.”

And so life went on as per normal…

…but unbeknownst to everyone in the Far East Branch, a new visitor was approaching the Branch’s gates… along with a new, deadly threat…


	10. Vajra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not long after Ken's arrival, a new yet familiar threat arrives at the feet of the Far East Branch.

It was a sight not unfamiliar to those at Fenrir Far East Branch at this point.  
Alarms rang off the hook as the God Eaters of the Den readied themselves for battle. Idenn and Ken were at the front entrance, setting up their equipment for battle against an unidentified foe that had apparently been sighted approaching the Branch. God Eaters were trained to be able to deal with any foe, familiar or otherwise, but something about this situation sent a feeling of uneasiness down the spines of those currently preparing for combat.

“Idenn, what do you think about this one?” came Ken’s inquiry, as the two of them stood by the gate awaiting orders to sortie. His God Arc, a silver-and-red short blade with a curved tip, was, upon closer inspection, unlike any Idenn had ever seen. Perhaps she would get to see what it was capable of in this upcoming battle.

“If I had to say…” Idenn began, “…I’m honestly a bit worried. I faced a strange Aragami not long ago, a Hannibal variant called a Boundary Hannibal that emanated green flames instead of red or purple, but I was able to deal with it quickly using Lifespring. Now, though… I still don’t have complete control over it, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to call upon it at will.”

Ken was about to respond, but the arrival of Soma Schicksal in their midst cut him off.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Soma stated. “The Aragami that is currently approaching us is exuding some sort of spatial distortion around it. Because of this, we can’t tell precisely what kind of Aragami it is, only that it is quadrupedal. This narrows it down to a few possibilities, but… that distortion worries me. At any rate, Idenn and Ken, you two will be accompanying me on this mission. Are you ready?”

Ken and Idenn both nodded. Whatever was coming for them, they were ready.

Steeling themselves, the three God Eaters gathered there faced the opening gate, stepping through the portal and exiting into the world outside… but what awaited them was something that could not have been predicted, something that rang warning bells in Idenn’s mind.

What stood before Idenn, Ken, and Soma was similar to a Vajra, but larger, and crackling with green electricity and sending up green flames with every footstep.

The source of the spatial distortion was apparent, too, as the air around the Vajra was warped and twisted like an intense heat haze, causing the form of the Vajra within to appear wavy and distorted, almost like a mirage.

Idenn instantly went into battle mode, readying her God Arc for combat… but Soma stopped her.

“Calm down, Idenn,” he commanded. “We need a plan to deal with this thing. Since we don’t know what it’s capable of, we’ll need to begin with an assault from a distance. Idenn and Ken, you two flank it and attack its sides from a distance with bullet attacks. I’ll draw its attention with grenades and traps in the meanwhile. You two ready?”

Ken and Idenn nodded.

“In that case,” replied Soma, “COMMENCE MISSION!”


	11. Developments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The operation against the Vajra takes an unforeseen turn when another new arrival takes it upon himself to slay their quarry...

At Soma’s words, Idenn and Ken broke off in opposite directions, shifting their God Arcs to their gun forms. Ken peppered the Vajra with rapid shots from his assault gun, while Idenn let loose with successive blasts from her blast gun. The furious assault kicked up a cloud of dust, and Soma readied a flash grenade for as soon as the target became visible once more…  
…but when the dust cleared, the Vajra was still standing there, just as it had been before. The spatial distortion had acted as a barrier, repelling all attacks.

“Dammit,” Idenn shouted, downing an OP Ampoule and blasting it again and again. “Why won’t you just die?!”

But Soma shouted at her to stop. Her attacks weren’t doing anything to affect this thing, no matter how hard she tried.

Idenn shifted her God Arc to its blade form and readied herself for a charge. “Maybe, just maybe, if I can land a Lifespring, I can just erase this monster…!”

“Don’t be hasty,” Soma interjected, motioning for Idenn to stand down. You know full well that Lifespring requires direct contact with the target, and like this, there’s no way any of us can touch it. We need to wait and see how it acts before we—”

But before Soma could finish his sentence, the barrier began to shift. Ripples spread outwards from the front of the barrier as a small hole opened up, a hole which began to crackle with the same green electricity that suffused the Vajra’s body.

“Shit,” cursed Idenn. “It’s getting ready to attack!”

And just as Idenn stated, the electricity that gathered at the hole in the barrier soon erupted forth in a mighty beam of Oracle energy, heading straight for Soma—

—but before it could hit, Ken dashed towards it, thrusting out his God Arc into the path of the beam.

“Ken, don’t be stupid!” shouted Soma. “There’s nothing you can do!”

Ken, however, had other ideas.

Before the eyes of Soma and Idenn, Ken’s God Arc began to shift. The outer edges of the blade suddenly moved apart, with an inner section telescoping outwards. What had been a short blade previously was now a buster blade, a mighty greatsword that parried the Vajra’s beam and swatted it off to the side.

“…I will admit, Ken, that was rather impressive,” came Soma’s response. “But until we figure out how to bypass that thing’s barrier, we—”

Soma did not finish his sentence, as he was cut off by the sight of something showing itself within the barrier. A human figure, it appeared to be male, with short black hair and crimson-brown eyes.

As the three of them looked on, the man who had suddenly appeared from within the barrier drew a God Arc, a long blade type, and impaled the Vajra with it, causing it to writhe in pain as the barrier dissipated.

Without missing a beat, the man pulled out his God Arc, shifted it to its assault gun form, and blasted the Vajra in the head with a nonstop barrage of bullets until the electricity suffusing its body stopped and the Vajra itself fell to the ground.

They had been saved… but by whom?


	12. Blake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new arrival explains his origins to Idenn... and, in the process, the complete truth of her own origins are laid bare to her.

Idenn, Ken, and Soma watched on as the mysterious man devoured the strange Vajra’s body and turned to face them.  
“I thank you for keeping this beast busy for me,” he stated, dusting himself off. “I’d been following it ever since I arrived in this time a few weeks ago. Thanks to your assistance, I’ve finally managed to slay it.”

Idenn blinked, momentarily dumbfounded by what this man had just said.

“‘This time?’ Then, you come from—”

“—The future, yes,” came the man’s swift reply.

Soma stepped forward. “I must admire your skill in battle, whoever you are… but how did you know you were in the past… er, your past?”

“It’s Blake,” the man returned, “and I could tell because where I come from… WHEN I come from, humanity has been all but annihilated by the Aragami. They evolved at an extremely fast rate after a certain point, and in the year 2125, three immortal and invincible Aragami appeared and completely destroyed every human alive… except for me. I’m the only survivor.”

Ken shuddered. “The only one alive? In the entire world?”

Blake nodded. “Yes… in the entire world. I am all that remains of humanity by the time I come from. But I must ask… how did I get here?”

“I can answer that,” came Idenn’s response. “I possess an ability called Lifespring that lets me compress Oracle energy into gravitational singularities that send the matter around me across spacetime, as well as pull it from elsewhere in spacetime to my current temporo-spatial coordinates.”

Blake scratched his head, then nodded. “Hmm… that makes sense, I suppose.”

“I do have one question for you, Blake,” Idenn continued. “You said you arrived here ‘a few weeks ago,’ correct? That would about line up with when I myself first arrived in this time. What year did you come from?"

“From 2128… why do you ask?” came Blake’s response.

It was at that moment that something clicked within Idenn. With this, it all made sense. She had only used Lifespring twice since arriving here in 2081: once against the Boundary Hannibal, and once in the training facility when Ken arrived. Since Blake had arrived “a few weeks ago,” that had to mean that he had been pulled into 2081 no earlier than the same moment Idenn had, which meant—

—that Idenn herself must have come from the future!

And then, at that moment, something else flashed through Idenn’s mind—

 

_—and she remembered everything._


	13. The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn, her memories having returned, tells the God Eaters of the Far East Branch everything.

“Everyone,” Idenn began, “please… allow me to explain.”  
Idenn had gathered Ken, Blake, Sakaki, and Soma in the briefing room of the Den. On this day, she would reveal everything, the truth she had finally learned about herself and about the world whence she came.

“Like Blake, I come from the future… from the year 2117,” Idenn began. “By this point, the world had seen an unnatural increase in how quickly Aragami were evolving. Humanity had begun to die off at an increased rate, and I was part of a task force organized to discover the reason for these events. Unfortunately, we never did discover a singular cause… but what we did find were the Boundary Aragami, as you call them.

“A mysterious man, working on his own, had been engineering the Boundary Aragami for an unknown purpose. I don’t know where this man came from, but with the help of my fellow task force members, I infiltrated his base and engaged him in battle. Unfortunately…” Idenn paused, as if remembering something painful. “…all of my comrades were massacred, one by one, at the hands of one of the Boundary Aragami the man sent after us—the Boundary Hannibal I defeated earlier.

“By this point, both the man and I were severely injured. I had used Lifespring to banish the Boundary Aragami elsewhere across spacetime, but I was fighting a battle of attrition trying to deal with both the Boundary Aragami and that man at the same time. As bad as I felt about it, I believed that others would be able to deal with the Boundary Aragami in whatever time periods they appeared in—a belief that Blake so handily proved to me—but I knew I couldn’t very well do the same to this man, as he would just resume his experiments and create more Boundary Aragami wherever—pardon me, whenever he went. Left with no other option, I used Lifespring one final time…”

Everyone in the room swallowed.

“…and turned my blade on myself. I stabbed myself with my own God Arc, intending to send myself into the past to bide my time and regain my strength to return and fight him again—but at the last moment, he ran towards me and entered Lifespring’s radius. That means—”

“That he got sent over with you,” Sakaki finished. “In other words, this man, the orchestrator of the Boundary Aragami, is here, likely producing more Boundary Aragami as we speak.”

“That is correct,” came Idenn’s reply. “Additionally, my having used my own Oracle Cells to power Lifespring is likely what caused my memory loss in the first place.” Idenn took a deep breath. “Now, I do not know if the Boundary Vajra we encountered was a new one or an existing one I sent back… but either way, we cannot afford to waste time. The Boundary Aragami will likely be appearing all over the world shortly, both from my having sent them back and from the orchestrator making new ones. As much as it pains me to get you all involved… I will need all of your help to eliminate these Aragami and find the mastermind. So please…”

Idenn bowed deeply to everyone gathered.

“Please… please help me! Please lend me your strength to put a stop to this threat!”

At that moment, however, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Blake, who looked down at her with a knowing gaze.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Blake exclaimed. “There’s no doubt in my mind that everyone here would do whatever it took to help you achieve your goal.” At these words, everyone present nodded emphatically. 

“And besides,” continued Blake, “I’ve got a feeling that these Boundary Aragami of yours are related to what happened in my time…”

“…so now I figure I should come clean about everything… about the Great Fall.”


	14. The Great Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake details the fate that befell his world, and Sakaki details a plan of attack. However, a new Boundary Aragami crashes the scene... but hot on its tail are two of the most powerful God Eaters the world has ever seen.

“It’s basically like you’ve heard so far,” began Blake. “As both Idenn and I have mentioned, starting in the early 22nd century, Aragami began to evolve at an increased rate. They were adapting faster than humanity could adapt to fight them. Little by little, humanity was dying off, with the death rate at the hands of the Aragami swiftly eclipsing the birth rate, if one still existed by that point. I was a God Eater then, at the London Branch… but even Fenrir couldn’t do much to deal with the rising threat.”  
Blake paused.

“And then, in 2125…” he continued, “…three Aragami appeared and completely destroyed the rest of humanity besides myself, in an event known as the Great Fall. One of these had the ability to completely shut down our God Arcs, as well as render all our forms of energy useless by placing them under its control. We called it the Hephaestus, after the Greek god of the forge, because in its presence our weapons were naught but hunks of iron.

“The second of these had the power to organize the Aragami under its control. With its arrival, the Aragami stopped attacking randomly and started carrying out organized raids and attacks against Fenrir branches and human settlements. We gave it the name ‘Hydra.’

“And finally…” Blake shuddered. “Finally, the third of these new Aragami appeared. We called it Lucifer, for wherever it went, it left nothing but hell in its wake. The advent of the Lucifer meant the downfall of humanity and the dawn of an age of desolation and death. Somehow, I managed to survive, but…”

“You’re the only one left, huh?” Idenn interjected. “I know how that feels… although not to the extent to which you must have experienced it.”

In the midst of all this, Sakaki stepped in. “I hate to break up this moment,” he began, “but what, exactly, does this have to do with Idenn’s situation and with the Boundary Aragami?"

“I’m getting to that,” replied Blake. “All this time, I’ve had no idea what brought about the increased Aragami evolution rate, the three almighty Aragami, or the Great Fall… but the timing of Idenn’s information makes too much sense. Something tells me… that the Boundary Aragami, and this mysterious mastermind, might be behind it all.”

Idenn blinked, as if in a moment of clarity. “You mean—”

“I do,” came Blake’s response. “My current theory goes like this: this mastermind of yours likely had been operating for some time before 2117. Those Boundary Aragami were probably a catalyst, seeds of a sort to set off something far, far greater. With the Boundary Aragami acting as kindling, the fire of the Aragami’s evolution ignited into a fierce blaze, spurring a greatly increased evolution rate that eventually resulted in the birth of the Hephaestus, the Hydra, and the Lucifer in 2125.”

“So,” spoke Sakaki, “what you’re saying is that the three almighty Aragami that caused the Great Fall can likely trace their origins directly to the Boundary Aragami?”

Blake nodded.

“I figure that, since the mastermind and the Boundary Aragami have made it to this time, they must have made it back somehow before the Great Fall happens, and that means that if we can take out the mastermind here and now along with the Boundary Aragami, we should be able to avert the Great Fall.”

Soma, who had not spoken in a while, stepped forward. “I’m all for that,” he began, “but what are the few of us here at the Far East Branch going to be able to do against this mastermind and all those Boundary Aragami?”

“Not much,” came Sakaki’s reply, “which is why I’ve taken the liberty of calling in reinforcements. The first few of them should be arriving shortly, so—”

Sakaki could not finish his sentence, as the ceiling above them suddenly caved in, a blurry green shape crashing to the floor in their midst.

What stood before them now was a familiar shape to some—a massive white wolf-like Aragami with powerful gauntlet-clad front legs and a Vajra-like mantle of glowing tendrils sprouting from behind its head, both of which emanated a green Oracle glow.

“A Boundary… Marduk?” Soma exclaimed.

Idenn tensed up. “I don’t remember fighting this one in the future,” she responded. “This must have been created recently! If we don’t act now, we’ll—”

She did not have a chance to finish her sentence, as the Boundary Marduk before them howled to the heavens and let loose a fierce green aura as the sound of its roar chilled the bones of all present. The Boundary Marduk assumed position and raised its mighty claw—

—before suddenly, a blur, and the claw instantly detached from the Aragami’s body, a spray of blood erupting from where it had just been attached.

“And that,” spoke Sakaki, “should be the first of them now. So glad you two could make it!”

As the Boundary Marduk roared in pain, two figures leapt down from the hole created by the Aragami upon entry.

Soma immediately stopped in his tracks upon laying eyes on the two God Eaters who had arrived. The first, a man, was impossibly tall, towering over everyone else in the room and carrying a short blade-type God Arc in his hand… whereas the second, a woman, wore short brown hair, a flowing black coat, a malefic red buster blade in one hand, and a sinister black scythe, dripping with what appeared to be the Boundary Marduk’s blood, in the other.

“Looks like we made it just in time,” the man exclaimed. “Sis went to pursue another Boundary Aragami we sighted on our way, so she should be by soon enough.”

The woman at his side, dwarfed by his immense stature, turned to face him. “You should be glad that old man Sakaki paired the two of us up, then,” she spoke in response, a playful tone suffusing her voice. “I doubt even you could handle something like this alone.”

The man laughed. “You’re right, I suppose,” came his reply. “I worry about Nia, but… I’m sure she can handle herself. Anyway, Nanako…” The man readied his short blade, the tip pointed at the Boundary Marduk. “You ready to clean up?”

As he spoke, the woman beside him hefted her buster blade, held in her left hand, over her shoulder, pointing the scythe towards the Boundary Marduk. “In all the times I've fought alongside you, Bal, have I ever not been ready?”

“True enough,” returned the man named Baluar. “Anyway…”

The two of them charged forward, God Arcs poised to strike.

“Here we go!!”


	15. Pair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanako and Baluar, their teamwork nigh unmatched, make proverbial breakfast with the Boundary Marduk.

Nanako and Baluar, the two new arrivals, faced down the Boundary Marduk, God Arcs at the ready as the beast roared with rage, seemingly unaffected by the loss of one of its arms.  
“Wanna go with the usual?” Nanako inquired of Baluar, her eyes fixed on her prey before her.

“Sounds good to me,” came Baluar’s reply. As he spoke, the Boundary Marduk leapt forward, augmenting its jumping power with Oracle energy suffusing its legs. This, however, proved no obstacle for Nanako, who tossed her buster blade into the air and gripped her scythe with both hands, crippling the Aragami with a well-placed Round Fang. As it fell to the ground, Nanako reached out and caught her buster blade, charging up and unleashing her blood art, Charge Crush: Divider, a slicing wave of energy that traveled forward and shattered the Boundary Marduk’s left gauntlet.

No longer able to support itself, the Boundary Marduk fell flat on its belly—right as Baluar leapt up in front of it, piercing its head with his short blade and pinning it to the ground.

“Ready?” Nanako called out, tossing Baluar her buster blade as he caught it with no trouble.

“Am I ever not?” came Baluar’s reply.

Before the Boundary Marduk could free itself, Nanako and Baluar rushed forward and, in one clean motion, cleaved the Aragami in two in a manner not unlike a pair of scissors cutting through paper, effortlessly shattering its core. As the Boundary Marduk’s body began to disintegrate amidst a green blaze of Oracle energy, Baluar tossed the buster blade back to Nanako, who caught it and sheathed it on her back, and withdrew his own short blade from the ground before them. 

“Business as usual,” exclaimed Nanako, wiping sweat from her brow. “Am I right?”

“Of course,” responded Baluar. The two had fought their fair share of battles together in the past few years, and their teamwork abilities were well-known throughout God Eaters everywhere. It was unlikely there was anything that could stand up to them if the two of them fought together.

While they were dusting off, however, Sakaki came forward.

“I hate to interrupt you two,” he spoke, “but we need to prepare for departure.

“Departure?” came the response of Ken, who had been standing off to the side and had not gotten a chance to act.

Idenn spoke up. “Sakaki has agreed to lend me Fenrir-affiliated reinforcements from across the world. We’ll need to get going and meet up with them as soon as possible.”

At these words, everyone in the room nodded. The fate of the world, and of the future itself, likely hung in the balance here. This mastermind, whoever he was, had to be stopped, along with all of his Boundary Aragami… and it would be those gathered here who would do it.

And the next morning…


	16. Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The assembled team of the Far East Branch depart Japan for Liverpool... but their flight is interrupted by an unwelcome guest.

At last, the time had come. Everything Idenn and Blake had struggled through would soon come to an end. With the aid of Sakaki’s reinforcements—which currently consisted of Nanako Kawashima and Baluar—Idenn, Ken, and Blake, along with Soma Schicksal and Kota Fujiki, would step out the door of Fenrir’s Far East Branch and board a VTOL plane to Liverpool, England, where they would meet up with their next reinforcements.  
“Is everyone ready?” Soma called out. The seven God Eaters assembled here in the entranceway had finished suiting up and were preparing to leave through the front gate.

Idenn stepped forward. “I’m ready,” she exclaimed. “And everyone… thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for agreeing to help me out and save my future.”

Ken slapped Idenn on the back jovially. “There’s really no need to be so formal, Idenn,” he replied. “We’re all in this together, you know?”

Idenn nodded, a smile on her face as she faced the gate.

“In that case, if everyone’s prepared…” Soma began. “Idenn, would you like to do the honors?”

“Of course,” came Idenn’s reply. “Everyone… let’s mosey!”

It had been five hours since they left the Far East Branch. The plane they were currently in was a VTOL craft, capable of vertical landings at a moment’s notice due to its rotating jets in the wings. It was Fenrir’s state of the art transport vehicle, and one of a fleet of seven. Now, this craft was taking the seven God Eaters to Liverpool, and towards the future…

***

“So,” Kota began, munching on a stick of beef jerky, “what’s the plan, exactly?”

Soma pulled out a tablet and flicked through a few menus. “We’re heading to the Liverpool Branch, where we’ll arrive in around a day. Once there, we’ll meet up with three new God Eaters who will be accompanying us from there on out. Baluar, one of them should be very familiar to you.”

Bal blinked, before a look of realization came over him. “You mean Nia? Sis is there? How’d she get there so fast? She was with me when Nanako and I were heading to the Far East Branch yesterday!”

“We had her flown there in a supersonic jet last night,” came Soma’s response. “We needed her to help our other two God Eaters get a few things set up in advance of our arrival.”

“Makes sense,” spoke Idenn. “I really have to hand it to Sakaki for getting this all set up at such short notice… we’ll need all the help we can get, after all.”

“At any rate,” came the voice of Blake, approaching from the rear of the plane, “there’s someone I know in Liverpool… or rather, knew, but he should still be alive. He’ll be a valuable asset if he’s still—”

Blake’s sentence was interrupted by a loud crash that echoed throughout the plane and caused a massive tremor. Something had slammed into the side of the craft… and that could only mean—

“An Aragami,” spoke Idenn. “The mastermind must have sent one after us.”

Soma rose to his feet without hesitation. “In that case, we must not waste time. Kota, get to the guns and blast that thing off of—

“Wait… where’s Ken?”

Idenn looked around… and saw the rear door of the plane in the process of closing.

“He left the plane!” she shouted. He must have gone outside to fight whatever’s attacking us!”

“Shit!” exclaimed Soma. “Somebody get out there and get him back in here!”

Meanwhile, on the wing of the plane…

 

Ken faced down his foe, a Sariel colored bright green and emitting a similarly-colored mist.

“A Boundary Sariel, huh?” Ken mused, drawing his God Arc. “It’s been a while since I’ve shown what I can do… let’s go, you monster!”


	17. Ken's Counterattack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken displays his unique skills as he battles the Boundary Sariel.

“Sariels… I hate Sariels.”

The wind whipped through Ken’s hair as he stood atop the wing of the VTOL craft, facing down the Boundary Sariel before him. He knew what a regular Sariel was capable of, so this unknown and unfamiliar foe filled him with a sense of apprehension…

Nonetheless, he thought, he could not let this thing jeopardize their mission.

“I hope you’re ready,” Ken began, readying his God Arc, “for PAIN!”

He knew he had no room to move here; one step and off the wing he would go. Of course, he wouldn’t need to move at all. He’d end this from a distance with his Blood Arts.

As he readied himself, the Boundary Sariel flared up with Oracle Energy and fired off a single laser, which Ken dodged by moving his upper body out of the way not unlike a boxer ducking and weaving. The Aragami fired off more lasers, but Ken dodged out of the way just like he did the first—until the Boundary Aragami wised up and fired a volley of lasers directly at his legs.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Ken exclaimed, shifting his God Arc to its buster blade form and holding it in front of him, deflecting the lasers. “I’m not going anywhere, you monster!”

With those words, he held his blade aloft and began to charge, releasing a massive tornado of Oracle energy that buffeted the Boundary Sariel, disorienting it. Unfortunately, this did not disrupt its course in following the plane… so Ken would have to take further measures.

Changing his God Arc to its assault gun form, Ken let loose with a barrage of bullets into the tornado. Before the Boundary Sariel could react, Ken switched back to his buster blade and let loose another tornado, then reverted to his assault gun and continued the barrage. No matter what, he would stop this thing here and now…

All of a sudden, however, as Ken switched back to his buster blade for another attack, a single laser exited the tornado, piercing through Ken’s left shoulder. No longer able to hold his buster blade, he slumped down towards the wing as the tornado dissipated and the Boundary Sariel emerged, looking worse for wear but nonetheless prepared to end Ken’s life right there…

“Like HELL I’m dying here!” came Ken’s shout. “Idenn… everyone… they all need me!”

Mustering all his strength, Ken raised his buster blade aloft and shifted it to its short blade form, holding the blade ready beside his head.

“This is the end for you!!” As Ken called out those words, his God Arc glowed with Oracle energy. In a single, decisive moment, Ken slashed out with his blade, missing the Boundary Sariel by a good few meters—

—until a storm of Oracle blades appeared in the blade’s wake, lashing out towards the Boundary Sariel and tearing it to shreds like a million paper cuts.

At last, the Aragami peeled off, falling to the earth as the plane left it behind.

“Phew… all done,” Ken sighed as he slumped to the wing.

“Only problem… how am I gonna get back in?”


	18. -∞: Beginnings, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look back into Idenn's future, as a punitive operation into the man known as "If" meets an unfortunate roadblock.

“Idenn, are you familiar with the concept of naked singularities?”

 

A voice called to me from behind me in the tunnel. It was Johan, my mentor and close friend. He was the head of the task force created by what was left of Fenrir to find the source of the recent Aragami outbreaks and heightened evolution, and now…

“Can it wait, Johan? We’re in the middle of an op here.”

At the moment, we—Johan, myself, and the rest of the task force—were in the middle of our most important operation yet. We had infiltrated the remains of what had apparently been the storage vault for Fenrir’s God Arc Soldiers in the distant past. Sometime around 2070 or so, a woman named Rachel Claudius had used this area, deep underground, as a staging ground from which to give birth to a Singularity, an Aragami that would devour the entire planet. As our current state of existence evidenced, she had failed… not that our current situation was much better.

“Idenn, this is important. I know you don’t like our lessons but this is perhaps the most important thing I will ever teach you.”

“…Fine. Yes, I know what a naked singularity is. I read about them in one of your books. They’re black holes with no event horizon, right?”

“Close enough, I suppose,” came Johan’s response. “They’re formed when rotating black holes spin fast enough to become ring-shaped, which results in the inner and outer event horizons drawing closer and merging, shrinking into the singularity itself and exposing it to the outside world.”

I didn’t get it. “So… what’s your point?"

Johan looked irate. “My POINT, Idenn, is that I know you have great potential within you. Your mind is capable of grasping theoretical concepts that most of us cannot even begin to wrap our heads around. If you can apply your knowledge of theoretical physics to your mastery of Oracle energy manipulation, I’m sure you’ll be able to perfect that Blood Art you’ve been working on.”

“That one…?” I shuddered. “Johan, you KNOW that Lifespring should never be used. The temporospatial implications, should it actually come to fruition, are far too dangerous.”

“That may well be, but it might be the only hope we have of stopping If once and for all. For your sake and for the sake of everyone here, you HAVE to finish Lifespring.”

If was the name we gave to the man who had been creating the new Aragami, altered species wreathed in auras of Oracle energy and possessing power far beyond any Aragami that had ever existed. If was short for… something, but everyone here had long since forgotten precisely what. But that wasn’t what was important. What was important was that we slew these new Aragami and killed If as soon as possible to prevent even more being created.

At that moment, however, my thoughts were interrupted by a familiar sound—the soft, steady rumble of heavy footsteps accompanied by the faint hum of Oracle energy. One of them was approaching, and it was close.

Johan leapt to action. “Men,” he began, “take your positions. This isn’t the first time we’ve fought one of them, and while these tight quarters should limit our fighting capabilities, we should be able to stop it if we act strategically.”

The rest of the task force nodded and drew their God Arcs. I readied my own God Arc, a short blade of brilliant green called an Oracle Sword. Whatever was coming, we would take it down, and If would follow soon after.

I turned to Johan to await further orders—

—only to find him wreathed in brilliant green flames. Flames that burned away his life and emitted an intense, sinister heat.

They’d found us quicker than expected. I had to—

But before I could act, I saw it.

Ahead of us in the tunnel was the Aragami those flames belonged to. It was tall, sinister, and draconic, with massive wings of Oracle flame—

 

—and beside it, standing in its umbrage, was him.

There was no mistaking that short black hair and the coat he wore about his shoulders.

“It’s you…!!”


	19. -∞: Beginnings, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn engages If in combat, and, pushed into a corner, perfects her secret weapon.

“So… we finally meet in person, If.”

 

I stared down the man standing before me, the mysterious Hannibal ever ready at his side. My God Arc cried out with an urge to tear this man apart, an urge echoing my own bloodlust.

“‘If?’” the man replied with a chuckle. “Is that what they’re calling me these days? I HAVE a name, you know. It’s—”

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT!” With all my rage, I cried out, rushing towards If… only to be shoved aside by one of my fellow task force members, just as the Hannibal’s claw pierced through him.

“Idenn…” he stammered, blood draining from his body, “you… you have to live…! You’re our… our only…”

He could not finish his sentence, the last of his life slipping away as the Hannibal threw him aside.

“Well now, that was a touching moment. However, I lack any semblance of pity for one such as yourself. Have you made your peace with this world, girl?”

“Like… like hell…!” I shot back, but before I could act, I found my line of sight obscured by the rest of the task force, who had placed themselves between me and If.

“Idenn, don’t throw your life away!”

“You need to flee from here! Flee and get stronger!”

“If you can just finish Lifespring, humanity will be saved! Our present, our future, will be saved!”

One by one, as they spoke, the Hannibal cut them down with precise, unforgiving strikes, their bodies crumpling to the ground as their lives were ended in a single instant.

If looked down at the bodies before facing me once again.

“What a pathetic display,” scoffed If. “They call themselves God Eaters, yet they couldn’t even withstand one strike from my friend here? What a joke. At any rate…”

He motioned to the Hannibal, which stepped towards me and raised its claw.

“…you’re next, girl.”

In a blinding instant, the Hannibal swung down its claw, meeting my body in a high-speed impact that drove the wind from my lungs.

However, I would not be so easily defeated.

“What is…” If began. “You grabbed onto its arm instead of being flung away? I applaud your bravery… but what do you plan on doing from that position?”

I looked at If, my eyes meeting his as a pained grin spread across my face.

“This.”

And with all the effort I could muster, I raised my God Arc and stabbed it directly into the Hannibal’s core.

“Let’s see if this works… LIFESPRING!!!”


	20. -∞: Beginnings, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idenn lets loose with Lifespring's power, banishing If across time and setting everything in motion.

A bright flash erupted forth as I plunged my blade into the Hannibal’s core. I knew how Lifespring SHOULD work; I knew the principles behind its operation, and thanks to Johan’s advice, I knew how to apply them to make Lifespring more than just a theory.  
With my power… humanity would be saved!

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!”

I cried to the heavens as I charged my God Arc with Oracle energy. This was the first step; I needed to create a repository of Oracle energy within the blade, then connect it with the Oracle energy of my target. Once I accomplished this, once I created this unified reservoir of my Oracle energy shared with that of my target, then I could proceed to step two.

Guiding the Oracle energy within my blade, I took a firm grip on the Hannibal’s Oracle energy and began to pull. This was the purpose of unifying my Oracle energy with the Hannibal’s—with our Oracle energy as one, I could manipulate both my and its energy as one, bringing its Oracle energy under my control.

The Hannibal roared in agony as its energy was stolen from it in a steady stream, a stream which lit up my blade more and more the more it flowed. Once I had drawn sufficient Oracle energy into my blade, I moved onto step three.

With the absorption complete, I performed step one in reverse—instead of moving my own Oracle energy into my blade, I drew the Oracle energy from my blade back into myself, and began the first crucial step: the compression. In order to facilitate Lifespring’s operation, I needed to compress the Oracle energy within myself into an infinite density within me. This process was arduous and painful, the sensation akin to being charged with an electrical current as a magnet pulled at your body from all sides, but in all it lasted mere seconds, and when it was complete, a visible spatial distortion could be seen around my vicinity with me at its center. The sheer density of all that Oracle energy compressed into an infinitesimal point was sufficient to warp space and time around it—but for Lifespring to be truly complete, one more extremely crucial step had to be completed.

I harkened back to what Johan had said about Naked singularities. What critical element of their construction enabled the singularity to be visible?

That’s right. It was rotational energy.

Concentrating with every last ounce of my willpower, I imagined a vortex swirling inside me, a whirling spiral guiding my inner energy into motion—

—and before I knew it, I could feel that same rotational energy being imparted to the immense reservoir of Oracle energy I had drawn into myself, the singularity point of infinitesimally-condensed Oracle energy beginning to spin… and as it did, the spatial warp around me, the event horizon, began to flatten, becoming more akin to a spinning ring than a wide dome. And as this ring spun faster and faster, it began to glow bright with the sum total of all my power—

—a power that I turned back on the Hannibal before me, expanding the ring to encompass both it and myself, before I drew it in sharply.

An unearthly sound that evoked the feeling of spacetime itself being crushed into oblivion could be heard as all the matter around me, including the Hannibal, was drawn in sharply, becoming smaller and smaller as it was bound by the ring-shaped event horizon and sucked into my physical body, within which the singularity point of Oracle energy spun at unimaginable speeds.

There was a flash— 

—and just like that, the Hannibal was gone, along with a perfectly spherical zone encompassing a sizable radius around me, the air rushing in to fill the void created by Lifespring’s activation.

I’d done it. I’d finally perfected Lifespring. With this, humanity would—

“That’s quite enough.” If’s words echoed throughout the tunnel, snapping me out of my daze. “You seem to have worked something out… but I won’t let you use it anymore! Now you die!”

At those last words, the ceiling burst apart, as several more large Aragami landed around him, all bearing the same green-colored Oracle flames as had the Hannibal.

As I stared down If and his newly-arrived reinforcements, I swallowed, sweat dripping down my forehead.

I may not have faced odds like this before… but like hell I would back down here.

One way or another, I WOULD save everyone… I would save our future, and the past along with it.

_Because that’s why I’m here._


	21. Liverpool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team arrives at the Liverpool Branch... and, meanwhile, a familiar face begins to place pieces on the game board.

It had been a long ride.

Everyone in the plane had long since lost track of time over the course of the trip. Harder indeed than fighting Aragami was simply doing nothing for an indefinitely long amount of time. After a while, cabin fever sets in, and it becomes difficult to simply sit around doing nothing.

Nonetheless, the ride did end, and as the landing pad of the Liverpool Branch came into view, those on board the VTOL craft crowded to the windows to gaze at their destination.

Below them towered a massive structure that evoked a giant tapering skyscraper with a wide, flat surface at its peak, and below that, at its base, sprawled a city full of massive buildings sporting varying degrees of ruin.

It was here, on this prominent tower, that they landed, the rotors of the VTOL craft slowing to a stop as the plane’s doors opened and the God Eaters inside spilled out onto solid ground at long last.

“It feels weird that I’m the one to say this, but seeing as how I’m the only one to have been here before…” Nanako began, scratching her head, “welcome to Liverpool!”

“Actually…” It was the voice of Blake, who came forward. “I grew up here, in the future. Assuredly, it looked very little like its present state, but this, well, this is my home.”

“In that case,” exclaimed Soma, who emerged from the plane carrying a clipboard, “there’s someone here who will no doubt be a welcome sight for—”

“—It’s my grandfather, isn’t it?” interjected Blake. “I know… he was a God Eater here around this time. There’s… there’s so much I want to talk to him about… where is he?”

Soma scratched something off on the clipboard, flipping a page aside. “According to reports we received shortly before our arrival, your grandfather, Jack Johnson, is currently in the R&D department for a scheduled tune-up on his God Arc. You are free to go see him… but be aware that he will have no idea who you are and will likely be taken aback by your explanation. If that’s alright with you…”

“It’s fine,” came Blake’s response. “I just… I just want to see him.”

“In that case,” continued Soma, “Idenn. You should accompany him. Perhaps you will be able to shed some light on Blake’s situation for Jack.”

Idenn nodded before departing for the elevator with Blake.

“Now then…” Soma checked off another item on his clipboard before pocketing it.

“I wonder how our resident ‘most brutal God Eater’ is doing…?”

***

“I must thank you for rescuing me from that place.”

A tall man with dark hair spoke towards the shadows in the corner of the room. There, someone stood, shrouded in darkness with only his shoulder-length silver hair glinting in the light.

“Please, there’s no need to thank me,” came the mysterious man’s reply. “I did what was necessary to salvage this timeline. It’s not something entirely unfamiliar to me, after all… But I digress. I need to leave before our new arrivals get here. It’s not yet time for them to meet me.”

And just like that, he was gone, stepping through a portal in space to parts unknown.

“Ever the mysterious one, hm? Anyways, I should head off and meet our visitors. They do need my… our strength for the coming war. After all… it’s not like Thomas Beoblade to keep people waiting.


	22. B + C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new face at the Liverpool Branch proves a mild annoyance, but Thomas Beoblade's arrival proves a welcome clue to the identity of If.

“Fifty million fc. That’s my final offer.”  
After arriving at the Liverpool Branch, Blake and Nanako had headed towards the R&D department to speak with Jack Johnson, Blake’s grandfather, while Soma had departed to meet with a… certain someone. Meanwhile, the remaining four—Nanako, Baluar, Ken, and Kota—had remained where they were, to await the arrival of a visiting God Eater known only as “C,” a shady woman who, according to Soma’s report, claimed to have knowledge of Boundary Aragami attack locations over the past few weeks. Should they obtain this knowledge, they’d gain a decisive advantage against If and his Boundary Aragami, but…

“Did… did I hear you right?” Bal exclaimed, bewildered by what he had just heard. “You want…”

“Fifty million fc, correct.” C’s words rang out clear as day. “If you want me to tell you what I know, that’s what it’ll cost you.”

Ken leaned over and whispered in Nanako’s ear. “Are you SURE we can trust this lady? What’s to guarantee she actually knows what she claims to know?”

“She might seem arrogant,” came Nanako’s whispered reply, “but I’ve dealt with her in the past, both directly and indirectly, and I can testify that her info has never once been off the mark. She knows absolutely everything there is to know about God Eaters, and knowing her, she’s probably been all over this crap with the Boundary Aragami ever since it began.”

“I can hear you, you know,” C interjected, causing both Nanako and Ken to twitch. “Either way, my answer remains the same. Either you all pony up the fifty mil, or you ain’t getting jack from me.”

The four God Eaters gathered there merely stood in shock, unaware of how to proceed. Nanako and Baluar might have had a good deal of money, but they’d had no interest in living anything like lives of luxury, preferring instead lives of travel and combat. Ken had found himself unable to access his account after his trip back—most likely it had been placed on a hold—and Kota, well…

At any rate, the four of them were completely at an impasse, until…

“I can pay the fee.”

A voice called out from behind them. It was a God Eater none of them, save for Baluar, had ever seen—however, in another world, at another time, this man would help Nanako Kawashima in her quest to destroy the dimensional menace known as the Gehenna—

—the man known as Thomas Beoblade.

“Did you hear me?” he repeated, a tad irritated. “I’ll pay the fee, so tell us all the information you have. Every last bit.”

C, taken slightly aback that someone was actually able to pony up her price, held out a card reader over which Beo swiped a small card. A chime was heard, and the transaction was completed.

“I… well, you did pay the fee, so I suppose I’ve got a duty to tell you everything,” C spoke, still a bit bewildered. “But anyway, how are you—” C scratched at her head. “Shouldn’t you be…?”

“If you’re referring to ‘that’ matter,” came Beo’s reply, “I was saved from that place by, well… someone I’m sure you’d be more than familiar with, Nanako. He told me not to tell you all who he was, though… said something like ‘it’s not yet time for them to discover my identity’ or something like that. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon enough, though.”

Beo ruffled his hair and turned back to face C.

“Now… why don’t you tell us everything? About the Boundary Aragami… and about Isaac Feldman.”


	23. Feldman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If—Isaac Feldman—makes his entrance... but the Far East Branch team is ready for him.

Kota gasped audibly. “Former Intelligence Chief Feldman? But… he disappeared completely five years ago and hasn’t been heard from since!”

“That’s right,” interjected C, “but what I have to tell you all concerns what he was doing before he vanished. I’m sure you’ve all had more than a few encounters with the Boundary Aragami… especially that girl who calls herself Idenn. In truth, the first sightings of them were in a remote location on the Japanese landmass approximately six years ago, in 2075. A man calling himself If had begun developing them for reasons I’ll get to in a second. In truth, though, the name of If was merely a guise, a front for a certain individual. This individual was none other than Isaac Feldman himself.”

Everyone on scene gasped.

“As for those reasons I spoke of earlier,” C continued, “it is altogether likely that Feldman had been planning a coup on Fenrir, using the Boundary Aragami as his weapons to crush those who stood in his way. However, before he could carry out his coup…”

“He vanished.” Those words came from Soma, who stepped onto the scene. “One day, in early 2076… he vanished without a trace, and his Boundary Aragami along with him.”

C scratched her head once more. “No one, not even myself, has any idea as to how this happened. Soma told me that it could have been a result of Idenn’s Lifespring, but…”

“According to Idenn’s report,” Soma chimed in, “she never actually used Lifespring until she was already fighting Feldman face to face, in the future… so we’re at a bit of an impasse.”

“I know of one way,” interjected Beo, “but… it seems way too unlikely…”

“Please,” Ken spoke up, “if you know of anything, anything at all, please tell us! This concerns me as well, after all, so even the smallest bit of information would be of help!”

All around Beo, everyone shared the same expression. They all beseeched Beo for anything he could do to help bring the truth to light.

Beo, meanwhile, sighed and gazed skyward.

“I’m sure he’d take issue with my revealing his identity so soon, but…”

Beo gazed back at the crowd of assembled God Eaters.

“Are any of you familiar with the name—”

“That’s quite enough.”

A voice cut through the sky above Liverpool, silencing Beo’s words as a massive beam of Oracle energy sliced through the air, missing Beo by an inch as he dodged out of the way and looked towards the source of the beam.

There, in the air above them, was a massive portal, a seeming opening in the fabric of spacetime itself. From within the opening, something sinister gazed back, something with innumerable glowing eyes and countless tentacles which quested forth in search of prey. These tentacles gripped the edges of the portal and pushed outwards, widening the opening so that the being on the other side could egress through.

The God Eaters gathered there on the Liverpool Branch’s roof could only watch on in horror as the Boundary Ouroboros slowly emerged from the portal—

—but what truly caught everyone’s attention was the figure astride the Aragami’s head.

“You…” Kota began, his face white as a sheet. “You’re former Intelligence Chief Feldman!!”

“I’m so glad someone here recognizes me,” came Feldman’s grandiose reply. “You… you’re Kota Fujiki, aren’t you? The little puppy who stayed at the Den instead of moving to Cradle with the rest of the First Unit? As if you could protect anything with your meager level of strength… but I digress. Now that you’re all onto me and my objectives, I can’t exactly allow you to continue to live… especially not when that Idenn girl is still here with you. Once I’ve finished with you, I’ll go and take care of her… and then I’ll turn my attention to the one who brought me to the future in the first place. Without that thorn in my side to stand in my way, I’ll be free to dominate the planet with my Boundary Aragami, and then…!!”

Feldman’s words were cut off as two successive blast gun shots exploded in the face of the Boundary Ouroboros before a fusillade of assault gun rounds pelted the Aragami, causing it to reel back and throw Feldman off as he landed gracefully on the ground and faced the new arrivals.

Before him stood his nemesis, Idenn, her God Arc charged and ready to take him down—but beside her stood two people he did not recognize.

“It looks like we made it in time, Blake,” exclaimed Idenn, as she shifted her God Arc into its blade form and readied it for combat. “You ready?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least slightly nervous,” came Blake’s reply, “but more than anything, we need to take this guy down.”

Blake turned to face the third person, an older man with spiked black hair and eyes the color of the deepest ocean.

“Are you ready… grandfather?”


	24. Nia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baluar's rumored sister makes her debut, joining the God Eaters in their battle against Isaac Feldman.

The tension in the air was immense as the nine God Eaters gathered on the roof of the Liverpool Branch faced down the immense Boundary Ouroboros, God Arcs at the ready as they prepared for battle.  
Feldman, on the other hand, seemed to have other ideas.

“I’d love to stay and chat,” he exclaimed, “but I have business to attend to. I’ll let my little pet here take care of you lot while I go after our missing friend, the one behind all this.”

“‘Behind all this?’” Idenn demanded. “Aren’t you the one behind the Boundary Aragami, the reason we’re all here fighting you now?”

“That well may be,” came Feldman’s reply, “but in truth, all of this is the work of a certain man, one who brought me to the future for a certain goal that not even I know. What I do know, however, is that his power is on a level that not even I can fully comprehend. He possesses the power to cross dimensions and travel through time and space like it’s nothing… I need to take him out quick, or he’ll eliminate me when he deems me too much of a threat.”

Feldman wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “I’ve talked for too long. As we speak, he could be… I need to be off, and fast.”

As he spoke, Feldman drew from beneath his coat a short blade-type God Arc, one that held an unrefined appearance and was made of an alien material with bio-mechanical elements that pulsed with green Oracle energy. Holding it out in front of him, the air around him seemed to flare up as Feldman’s God Arc began to transform, extending and shifting until it took on the crude shape of a malefic long blade. Feldman thrust this forward—and it buried itself in thin air, half of the blade disappearing into seemingly nothing as ripples spread out in the air around the blade’s point of impact. Gripping the blade’s hilt with both hands, Feldman slashed upwards—

—and space itself tore apart, the air splitting as a jagged portal formed in front of Feldman’s position, the contents of the other side appearing heavily distorted.

“I wish you luck against my pet, but I mustn’t waste any time. I need to follow after ‘him,’ before he—”

Feldman was prevented from stepping through the portal by a quick assault gun shot from off to the side, a bullet that disintegrated against a faint spherical shield that appeared around Feldman.

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

The voice came from another God Eater who arrived on the scene, an eerily tall woman with jet black hair and similarly-colored eyes. 

“Sorry I’m so late,” she spoke. “I had to finish getting a few things set up. But hey, I did tell Sakaki I’d be here, so here I am…”

The woman turned to face the crowd, staring directly into the eyes of Baluar.

“…brother.”


	25. Teamwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baluar and Nia show Isaac Feldman what true teamwork is... but just when the situation looks grim, a face from Nanako's past arrives on the scene to turn things around.

At the sight of his sister, Nia, Baluar turned to run towards her—  
—but Nanako stopped him, her hand on his shoulder.

“Listen,” she began, “I’m sure you two are excited to see each other again, but we’ve got bigger problems. Let’s mop up here and then you two can have your little catching up, ‘kay?”

Bal nodded. “I know…” came his reply. “Hey, sis, you ready to take this asshole down?”

Nia shouted a response in the affirmative. In spite of Nanako’s experience fighting alongside Baluar, the bond he shared with his younger twin sister Nia could not be matched by anyone. They had been together all their lives and had fought together as well. If there was such a thing as a truly 「perfect」 fighting combo in the world… it was them. And now was a perfect time to demonstrate that.

“Baluar, Nia,” Soma barked out, “you two lead the charge against the Boundary Ouroboros. Use your tag team skills to back each other up and keep that thing occupied. Kota and I will provide support alongside Blake and Jack. Nanako, you and Ken work with Beoblade to keep Feldman busy… and Idenn…”

“Yes?” came Idenn’s swift reply.

“You’ll be the one to take Feldman down once and for all. It looks like he can travel through spatial dimensions on his own, but my guess would be that time travel on his own is still out of reach for him, no matter how much he might bluff to the contrary. Otherwise, he would have gone back in time further and killed us all already. Idenn, you’ll need to use Lifespring to send him as far in either direction as you can, on the order of thousands or millions of years. Do you think you can accomplish that?”

Idenn nodded. “It’ll take a lot of energy… but I think I can do it.”

“Good,” came Soma’s reply. “Alright, everyone… let’s move out!”

At those words, Bal and Nia charged forward, brandishing their short blades and hacking away at the Boundary Ouroboros’ tentacles while dodging simultaneous strikes from multiple directions. It was truly a sight to behold—they moved in perfect sync with each other, keeping the other’s position in mind at all times and coordinating their attacks for maximum effectiveness. The Boundary Ouroboros had little time to react, its limbs hacked to pieces before its many eyes as Bal and Nia attacked with utmost efficiency.

In the meantime, Kota, Blake, and Jack opened fire on the Aragami’s eyes with their guns, a constant stream of bullets erupting from their barrels and sending the Boundary Ouroboros reeling. Soma executed precise slashes with his buster blade, chaining together several aerial attacks on the Boundary Ouroboros’ head into a charge crush as soon as he landed, shattering its face and opening it up to further attacks from Kota alongside the grandfather-grandson duo.

Feldman, meanwhile, was under assault by the combined forces of Nanako, Ken, Beo, and Idenn. His shield was proving to be annoying to deal with—every attack made against him was immediately repulsed by a seemingly perfect defense. There was little even all four of them could do in the face of such a barrier, until…

“Ken, behind you!” Beoblade’s words rang out over the chaos of battle as Feldman launched an attack from behind Ken, swinging his long blade down with the intent of severing Ken in half—but he found his strike blocked, as Ken parried Feldman’s eldritch weapon with his own God Arc.

“He blocked it… wait, that’s it!” Nanako shouted. “He can’t keep the barrier up and attack at the same time, since if he kept the barrier up then Ken would have just gotten pushed away! Everyone, time your attacks for when Feldman strikes!”

Feldman, however, had other ideas.

“You fools, did you really think it would be that easy?” Feldman laughed in the direction of his attackers as he reactivated his barrier, sending Ken flying backwards as the barrier pushed him away. “As long as I don’t attack, I am invincible! Nothing you can do can so much as scratch me!”

Meanwhile, the battle against the Boundary Ouroboros raged on as Baluar and Nia sliced through the last of the Aragami’s tentacles. With no more support, the beast toppled to the ground, as Soma landed a powerful Charge Crush directly on the Boundary Ouroboros’ head, completely obliterating what was left of it as Blake and Jack tore the rest of its body to shreds with relentless volleys of bullets.

With that threat out of the way, the five of them turned towards Feldman’s location, as his barrier was buffeted by constant strikes from all directions. It would seem that not even the combined attacks of four of the strongest God Eaters in the world could force Feldman’s hand.

“Goddammit!” Nanako shouted. “We’ve been sealing off his attacks, but is there no way we can penetrate this asshole’s defenses?”

Beoblade called out to Nanako while keeping up the assault. “There is one, but… the probability of that specific scenario happening would be astronomically small… If only we could…”

“Well just spit it out already!” Nanako demanded. “Our lives, and the fate of the goddamn WORLD, are at stake here!”

“…fine,” came Beoblade’s reply, after a long sigh. “Feldman’s barrier seems like a spatial distortion, something that amounts to an absolute boundary line in the walls of the spatial dimensions, so the only way to pierce it would be to—”

But Beo’s words were cut off by a sudden sound ringing out through the air, the unmistakable sound of a portal being torn open much in the manner as had Feldman’s blade earlier.

 

_“That’s quite enough.”_

 

And then… _he_ appeared.


	26. ∑

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma's return marks a change in the tides of battle.

All noise seemed to vanish from the vicinity—all, save for the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps, the sound of someone stepping out of a portal in space and making his way through the chaos towards Feldman’s position.  
Instantly, Nanako was struck by the man’s appearance. There was no mistaking or forgetting the sight of that man, his dark skin and brilliant silver hair, the one from all those years ago in Glasgow. Together, they had long ago fought against the Gehenna, the greatest threat the world, and the future, had ever known—and now, here he was, standing before her after fourteen long years.

“Sig…ma…” Nanako dropped to her knees at the sight of this new arrival, tears in her eyes. “You’ve… you’ve come back…”

Sigma turned to face Nanako, walking over to her.

“Here,” he spoke, offering his hand. “Stand up, and wipe those tears.” At those words, Nanako grasped Sigma’s hand and helped herself to her feet.

“You’ve grown so much, Nanako,” Sigma continued. “You’ve truly matured into a fine woman and a God Eater that Cyrus would truly be proud of. But our reunion can wait… let me do something about Isaac Feldman for you.”

Without a word, Sigma strode forward, towards where Feldman stood, his barrier still active.

Feldman, on the other hand, was shaking with fear.

“It’s… it’s you…” he spoke, his voice trembling. “You’re the one who—”

“Not another word,” interjected Sigma. With a single, slight motion, Sigma held out his hand and clenched his fist as if to grab an invisible sheet of fabric, then pulled. All at once, Feldman’s barrier melted away and dissolved into nothingness, leaving him defenseless.

“His barrier was being generated by that weapon of his,” explained Sigma, as he strode further towards Feldman. “That thing operates on the same principle as the Boundary Aragami do. If normal God Arcs are weaponized Aragami, then that thing is a Boundary Aragami in weapon form. I had been keeping tabs on him in the future, and I noticed he had this… this “Boundary God Arc,” as I’ll call it, with him. However, I never thought he’d use that technology to create more Boundary Aragami once he got here, to this time…”

Feldman, meanwhile, was staring Sigma down, frozen in place.

“You bastard…” he began, his face a picture of grotesque rage. “I’ll not have my plans foiled. Not here and not now!”

But before he could brandish his blade, Idenn was upon him, her God Arc impaled firmly in Feldman’s torso.

“Y— you…!!” Feldman gasped, his breath labored as a result of Idenn’s God Arc stuck through his chest.

“I’m sure you know what comes next, If… no, Isaac Feldman,” spoke Idenn slowly and deliberately, a malicious grin spread across her face. “This is where I exact my revenge on you for what you did to all my comrades… this is where I banish you far, far away across time and space. After this, you’ll never bother anyone again, and there you will die, cold and alone, with no one for company but yourself to curse your own powerlessness… over… and over again… until the end.”

“N-no…” Feldman stammered. “Please, don’t—”

**_“TOO LATE, ASSHOLE! LIFESPRING!!”_ **

The familiar flash shone out across the landing pad of the Liverpool Branch—

—and just like that, Isaac Feldman was gone.

Idenn slumped to the ground, her energy drained from exerting herself on that powerful a Lifespring. Everyone else present breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Their long struggle had finally come to an end. However…

“Let’s not get comfortable, everyone.” Sigma spoke a word of caution to everyone gathered there. “He still has his Boundary God Arc, and while it was certainly damaged as a result of Idenn’s Lifespring, who knows if he’ll be able to use it to return given enough time. In the meantime, though…”

Sigma began to walk towards the door to the elevator that would take everyone down into the Branch proper.

“…come with me. I’ll tell you the truth about everything.”


	27. The Horizon (Part 1 End)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma lais bare the truths Idenn and her comrades had sought—and some they hadn't.

“Now… where to begin?”  
At present, all ten God Eaters who had been present for the battle against Feldman—Idenn, Ken, Baluar, Nia, Beoblade, Soma, Kota, Blake, Jack, and C—were currently gathered in front of the one called Sigma in the lounge of the Liverpool Branch. Here, Sigma had promised them, he would tell them the truth about all the events that had transpired thus far. 

Here, everything would be made clear.

“Before we begin,” Sigma exclaimed, taking a seat opposite everyone else, “I need to tell you a bit about myself. I was born in California, in the year 2042. When I was eleven years old, the Aragami attacked my hometown and killed everyone there except for me. I survived… and shortly thereafter, in my desperation and hunger, I feasted on an Aragami, an Abaddon, and became half Aragami myself.

“After that, I was taken in by a group of human survivors… but they, too, were annihilated by the Aragami, save for our leader. I journeyed with her to Fenrir’s America Branch, and there I became a God Eater in spite of myself, to protect humanity against the Aragami threat. Later on down the line… I want to say it was thirteen or fourteen years later, I journeyed to the Russia Branch, hoping to do what I could to eradicate the Aragami across the planet.

“What happened next, well… Nanako, you know this part.” Sigma looked over at Nanako, who nodded. “I caught wind from a superior officer of mine that the R&D department at the Glasgow Branch in Scotland were constructing a massive anti-Aragami cannon called the Gigantes… a weapon that would have required a human life to power it. While I would have stopped at nothing to destroy the Aragami… the sacrifice of a human life was too much. Left with no other option, I massacred my comrades and superior officers at the Russia Branch and departed on my own to the Glasgow Branch to stop the Gigantes’ deployment. Looking back on it now, I see how foolish I was… but the past is the past, and those actions are just as much a part of me as anything else.

“Anyway, I digress. I arrived at the Glasgow Branch and murdered the R&D head in my rage over what he had wrought. However, in doing so, I also met Nanako here, and when faced with the awakening of an Aragami of mountainous proportions known as the Gehenna, Nanako and I worked together to operate the Gigantes and destroy the Gehenna before it could obliterate the Glasgow Branch, and the rest of humanity thereafter.”

Everyone there looked enraptured by Sigma’s tale. Everyone except Ken.

“So,” Ken interjected, “what exactly happened next? Everyone lived happily ever after, or what?”

“Hardly,” Sigma returned. “Nanako, what happens next concerns you… as well as you, Thomas.”

“Just ‘Beoblade’ is fine, thanks,” came Beo’s curt reply. “But get on with it.”

“I shall,” responded Sigma. “You see, the Gehenna itself was no mere Aragami, but a sort of timespace nexus holding multiple timelines together. In destroying the Gehenna, we created a branching timeline where the Gehenna was not destroyed. In that timeline, the Earth was ravaged and its peoples annihilated, save for a small portion. Nanako took it upon herself in this timeline to rally a group of survivors and fight against a new variety of Aragami that sprang up in the Gehenna’s wake.

“Eventually, Nanako, with the help of myself and a number of allies, journeyed back in time to the moment of the Gehenna’s awakening. There, we invaded inside the Gehenna directly and destroyed its core, which was itself a nexus of countless timelines. In doing so, we erased our own timeline, but in the process we reset everything to how it should have been, essentially restoring time to its proper flow.

“After this, I went my own way, eventually encountering another person here… that person is you, Beoblade. Remember?”

“That’s right,” came Beo’s reply. “You journeyed through the Five Doors with the rest of us. Your power was a significant asset to all of us, but… what happened after that?”

“After that,” continued Sigma, “is where things truly get interesting. Have any of you ever wondered how Isaac Feldman obtained the means to create something as powerful as the Boundary Aragami?”

Nia scratched her head. “Come to think of it…”

“After my travels in the Five Doors with Beoblade, I was spat out in a dimension beyond the reaches of time itself. Here, I discovered the ultimate truth of the world—a truth called the Horizon.”

“The… Horizon?” exclaimed Ken. No one here had ever heard of such a term before, so…

“Precisely,” answered Sigma. “The Horizon. It is essentially an existence, a force, that stands outside time at the origin of all things, of all existence. At the same time, it is the ultimate destination, the endpoint of all existence. It is both a source of life and the end of all life. I arrived here purely by chance—it is impossible for any ordinary being to seek out the Horizon—and forged a contract with it in a search for power, power enough to undo what had been done and go back in time, back to before the Aragami arose, and eradicate the source of the Aragami before they could wreak their havoc upon the planet. I was granted immeasurable power by the Horizon there, but…”

Idenn gasped. “But so was Feldman!”

“That is indeed correct,” came Sigma’s reply. “Isaac Feldman found himself at the Horizon, again purely by chance, and demanded it grant him power for him to achieve his ambitions. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, the Horizon judged him unworthy, and thus it only granted him a fraction of the power it granted me. However, even that level of power was enough. With it, he returned to the present—his present—and began to use his Horizon-granted power to manufacture the first of the Boundary Aragami.”

“Hold on,” interrupted Soma. “Something doesn’t add up. If he encountered this… Horizon before he started making the Boundary Aragami, then where did he go in 2076? What was it that caused him to just up and vanish like that?”

“It was me,” answered Sigma. “I judged him to be too great a threat to the continued integrity of this timeline—after all, even a very small amount of the Horizon’s power is enough to inflict untold devastation on the world—and removed him from the present with my own two hands. It was as simple as opening up a portal in spacetime, grabbing him, and pulling him back in with me, then dropping him off at some point in the future. However, I neglected to plan out precisely what year I dropped him in, but fortunately…”

“I was there,” continued Idenn. “And I’m sure you know what happened after that.”

“Indeed,” came Sigma’s reply. “My ultimate objective was to allow Feldman to build up his Horizon powers in the distant future, then return there myself and use the resulting confluence of Horizon energy to cause a reaction that would enable me to jump far enough back in time to a point before the Aragami were born, thus enabling me to eradicate them at the source. However, you got to him before I could, and you used that Lifespring of yours to bring him back to the present, five years later. After that, of course, all of you know the rest.”

Everyone there needed a moment to process all the information they had just taken in. Some extradimensional force that was the alpha and the omega of all existence? It was all a bit much.

“You said earlier that Feldman might come back, despite being unable to travel through time like you can,” spoke Baluar. “What did you mean by that? How could he accomplish this?”

“Remember when I said that it was impossible for ‘any ordinary being’ to find the Horizon?” Sigma answered. “That rule doesn’t apply to those who have already been touched by the Horizon. There’s a very real chance that Feldman could find his way back there, obtain even greater power, and return to face us again… so before that happens, I’ll need to train you. Every last one of you will need to reach as high a level of power as you can before the time of Feldman’s return. It won’t be easy; in fact, you just might die, but I WILL make you all stronger. If any among you don’t feel you’re up to the task, leave now, because the road ahead is long and hard.”

However, after hearing Sigma’s words… no one left. Everyone remained where they were, resolute in their determination to take Feldman down.

“In that case…” continued Sigma, “let us get started. It’ll be a long road… but we WILL come out of this alive. For the sake of killing that bastard Feldman before he can wreak havoc upon this world—”

“—I will take all of you to the Horizon.”


	28. New Faces, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New arrivals strengthen the ranks of the Anti-Feldman Task Force, just in time for another Boundary Aragami attack.

“You’ll take US… to the Horizon!?”  
Idenn stood before Sigma, mouth agape at this revelation.

“That is correct,” came Sigma’s reply. “In order for all of you to obtain the power necessary to fight against Feldman when he inevitably returns, I’m going to take you all to the Horizon and have you form contracts of your own with it.”

Beoblade looked pensive for a moment. “Us, forming contracts with the Horizon… with that kind of power, I could finally…!”

“You should save that for when we’re finally there,” Sigma interjected. “But before we get going, we need to prepare. If any of you have any lingering regrets in this world, now is the time to make peace with yourself, because from here on out, there’s no going back. You’ll need to accept that you might die when you reach the Horizon, and use that resolve to steel yourself for departure. So, let me ask formally: do any of you have any regrets?”

At this point, Beoblade spoke up.

“If anything… I wish I could have seen Kaitlin one last time before we left. She’s, well… she’s my most trusted soldier, I suppose… and I would have wanted her to know that I’m—”

“—That you’re what, sir?”

Beoblade felt a light tap on the crown of his head. Whirling around, he beheld before him the image of Kaitlin Gristan standing there, a smile on her face and her hand raised.

“Kaitlin…!” Beoblade could not believe his eyes. Sakaki had contacted him to come to Idenn’s aid, to be sure, but until now he’d had no idea that Kaitlin had been called as well. Surely, with her skills, the battle against Feldman would be…

“Wait,” began Beoblade. “Does that mean… you’re coming with us?”

“Indeed it does, sir,” came Kaitlin’s reply. “At Sigma’s advising, I’ll be accompanying you all to the Horizon. Please look after me!”

“If you’re here, though,” spoke Beoblade apprehensively, “does that mean our group will be expanding even further?”

“That is correct,” came the voice of Soma Schicksal, who entered the lounge through its modest entryway. “There are a number of other God Eaters who will be joining us before our departure. They should be arriving sometime within the next week, after which point all of us will be departing together.”

Idenn looked skyward upon hearing these words. More allies… perhaps she would be able to defeat Feldman after all? Only time would tell…

…but it seemed that their enemies would not allow them such time.

From outside the branch, sounds of explosions could be heard as the walls of the branch shook with numerous impacts. They were under attack, likely by Boundary Aragami remnants—

—and as Idenn rushed to the windows, she confirmed this fact for herself… for surrounding the branch on all sides were countless tall, humanoid Aragami wreathed in green flames. Sporting humanoid faces and six mighty arms—two ending in twisted blades, two in powerful guns, and two in imposing fists—the swarm of apparent Boundary Yaksha appeared ready to destroy the branch and everyone within.

At once, all the God Eaters assembled within the lounge readied their God Arcs for battle… but found themselves stopped by Soma, who barred the exit before them.

“The hell’s your problem, Soma?!” Ken lashed out against the older man with a pointed tongue. “We’re all going to die if you don’t let us out!”

Soma, however, was not having any of this—and returned Ken’s words with a slap to the face.

“Calm yourself, Ken,” came Soma’s curt reply. “I wouldn’t be doing this if there weren’t a good reason… and as it turns out, one such reason exists. Just watch—none of those Aragami will reach us.”

And as Ken rushed to the windows of the lounge and peered outside, he saw a truly astonishing sight—

—for before their very eyes, down below, a single shot rang out, then another, and another, as the Boundary Yaksha began to reel back in pain, the bullets having pierced directly through their heads.

And in that moment, a blur descended from above, revealing itself as it landed on the ground as a man with short green hair who moved quickly through the ranks of Boundary Yaksha, debilitating them with precise strikes from his buster blade and laying them low.

Meanwhile the shots from above kept coming, each one landing precise critical hits with not a single miss. Before long, every one of the Boundary Yaksha had been defeated… and those present in the lounge stood wordless.

“That hair, and that blade…” Baluar spoke. “That’s… that’s Arthur!”

“And I know only one person with sniping skills that precise,” added Beo. “It’s got to be…!”

The sound of the elevator doors opening alerted those present to the arrival of a new guest. And stepping out of the elevator and into the lounge, the sight which greeted the God Eaters gathered there was…!


	29. New Faces, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reinforcements introduce themselves, and Sigma outlines the plan... which doesn't sit well with one member of the Force.

“God Eater Lyrr, formerly of the Far East Branch, reporting for continued duty.”  
The man who had just arrived saluted to the God Eaters gathered in the lounge of the Liverpool Branch, his imposing sniper rifle at his side.

“You mean…” Blake began, “…it was you who fired all those shots at the Boundary Yaksha back there? Just you, on your own?”

“It was.” Lyrr responded in the affirmative. “I will admit, I was surprised when I arrived and the first thing I saw was a bunch of Aragami I’d never seen before converging on the branch, but I just did what anyone else in my position would have done. And when I heard that I’d have Arthur of all people as reinforcement, well… it was more than a small confidence boost.” Lyrr laughed halfheartedly.

Lyrr’s words were met with a response from Baluar. “Be that as it may,” he began, “does this mean that you, Arthur, and Kaitlin will all be joining us on our journey to the Horizon?”

“That’s the plan,” came Lyrr’s reply. “I was briefed on the situation on my way down here. From the looks of things, making contracts with the Horizon is the only way we’ll be able to obtain enough power to fight against Feldman when he returns. Is that it?”

“That’s right,” answered Sigma. “The power granted by the Horizon reduces all to naught before it. I was able to subjugate Feldman earlier because the power he had received from the Horizon was incomplete, but should he come back from wherever… pardon, WHENever Idenn sent him, all of us with the power of the Horizon is the only way we’ll even have a CHANCE against him AND all his Boundary Aragami.”

“And there’s something I wanted to ask about,” came the voice of someone else arriving from the elevator. It was Arthur, the man who had cut his way effortlessly through all of those Boundary Yaksha earlier. “You mentioned the ‘Boundary Aragami’… but what exactly ARE they?”

“I’m sure the rest of you have figured it out by now,” began Sigma, “but the Boundary Aragami are normal Aragami infused with the power of the Horizon from Feldman himself. Since the Horizon’s power can be granted only by the Horizon and not, in this case, by Feldman, he spawns the Boundary Aragami directly from his Boundary God Arc, which itself was the first Boundary Aragami, created and granted by the Horizon to Feldman in response to his own twisted desire for power. The Horizon’s power is nearly infinite, so the amount of Boundary Aragami Feldman can create is appropriately nearly infinite itself. Because of this…”

“…there’s no way of knowing just how many he’ll be able to create should he obtain the full powers of the Horizon,” interjected Nanako. “Am I right?”

“As always,” came Sigma’s reply, “you’re exactly right. Should Feldman obtain the Horizon’s full powers, he might very well be able to flood the entire world with a sea of Boundary Aragami—”

“—but he wouldn’t want that,” interrupted Ken. “Feldman’s objective is to rule the world, not destroy it. What’s the point in having infinite power if there’s no one over whom to exert it?”

“Right,” affirmed Sigma. “We can rule out a complete world conquest by ultimate force as one of Feldman’s objectives, so that gives us a bit more leeway when preparing to face him—but, again, considering what he’ll be capable of when he returns, all of you will need not only to obtain the powers of the Horizon, but also to train with them and become acclimated to them before you can wield them to their fullest potential.”

Baluar, however, was having none of this.

“You say that we aren’t strong enough without the Horizon’s power,” Bal spoke, “but what about sis and I? We’re half Aragami as it is, and I’m sure you saw how we fared against that Boundary Ouroboros back there. Plus, that was only a small fraction of our power. Are you trying to say that, even at full power, we’d be unable to beat Feldman?!”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” came Sigma’s curt reply. “Even with the strongest Aragami powers known to man, not even both of you fighting together would be able to so much as dent Feldman should he obtain the Horizon’s full power.”

“See, I think that’s bullshit,” responded Baluar. “You have no idea of what even one of us is capable of us at full power, so who are you to say that, even fighting together, we wouldn’t be able to stand up to Feldman? I’ve half a mind to—”

Baluar’s impetuous words were swiftly and decisively silenced as the atmosphere of the lounge suddenly changed. All at once, everyone could feel the presence of what could only be described as abject despair and the lurking presence of death. Baluar himself swallowed, beads of sweat dripping down his face as his throat was checked by the grim reaper’s metaphorical scythe. At the center of the room, Sigma stood, his calculating eyes belying a gate to something incomprehensible, the bottomless abyss of death.

“B-Bro,” Nia spoke, her voice trembling with fear. “You really should just go along with this. Sigma’s right, and besides, where would the harm be in getting even stronger?”

“You don’t get it, sis! Sigma disrespected both of us in the worst way possible! He said we weren’t strong enough. But we’ve NEVER not been strong enough! And I’m gonna teach him that in the only way there is!”

As the oppressive pressure in the room continued to mount, Baluar drew his God Arc and pointed it at Sigma. 

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he began, readying himself for pitched combat, “but this is a matter of pride, and I can’t let this affront stand.”

“Very well,” came Sigma’s emotionless response, as he raised a single hand and held it before him. “You may very well be among the strongest individuals here… but if you cannot listen to reason—”

_“—then I will put you in your place!”_


	30. Erasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma demonstrates the full extent of his power for a reluctant Baluar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (basically, we JoJo now.)

Death.  
The feeling could best be described as what a mouse feels when it faces down a lion, at the moment just before the beast strikes, ending the small creature’s life in a quick, decisive moment.

Baluar’s pride was immense, to be sure… but in the face of Sigma, whose power could truly be considered “almighty,” he knew there was no hope for victory. Nonetheless, his pride wouldn’t allow him to back down… and so here he stood, God Arc at the ready, prepared to lay his life on the line to prove his own power and determination.

“Sigma…” Bal began, seething with his readiness for battle. “I’ve got nothing against you, but I need to demonstrate for you that I’m stronger than you think!”

“Very well,” came Sigma’s response. “Come at me whenever you’re ready.”

Bal readied his God Arc and lunged towards Sigma—

—who vanished before Bal’s eyes. Without Bal even blinking, Sigma had vanished, only to appear behind Bal as if nothing had happened.

“What… the…” Bal muttered, turning to face Sigma. “That goes beyond speed… I didn’t even see you move! What did you do?!”

“Hmph.” Sigma’s response was detached and teasing. “Is that all you’ve got, Baluar?”

“Not hardly!” came Bal’s reply, as he shifted his God Arc into its gun form—

“Bal, you idiot!” Nia called out to him from towards the edges of the room. “Fire that thing in here and the entire place will be wrecked!”

She had a point… Bal shifted his God Arc back to its short blade form and charged once more towards Sigma, but once again, without Sigma even making any indication of moving, he was gone, standing behind Bal like nothing had happened.

“Goddammit, how the hell are you DOING that?!” Bal’s voice betrayed signs of anger. His eyes, augmented by his Aragami half, were incredibly precise and could perceive even the smallest and most minute of tells in an opponent’s actions.

But this wasn’t even an issue of Sigma erasing his presence or making no wasted movement. No, Sigma wasn’t even moving. He wasn’t moving, and yet… And yet…!!”

“If that’s all you can do, Bal,” began Sigma, his voice taunting and serious, “you’ll never even get close to Feldman at his full power. He’ll erase you from this earth without so much as a thought.”

Bal wasn’t listening, though. Without a second thought, he hurled his God Arc straight at Sigma faster than Bal himself could move—but, once again, Sigma was gone, and Bal’s God Arc with him. Once again, too, Sigma was behind him, holding Bal’s God Arc and looking it over.

“A fine piece, to be sure,” came Sigma’s calm words. “This has seen you through many a battle… but powerful weapons alone won’t be enough to stand up to Feldman. This battle should have shown you that, if you—”

“It’s 「time」.”

Sigma stood still.

“It’s 「time」, isn’t it, Sigma?”

A smile crept onto Sigma’s lips. “How did you figure it out?”

“It hit me after the second time you dodged out of the way,” came Bal’s answer. “At first I thought you were just moving faster than my eyes could see, or teleporting, or something… but then I noticed. Whenever you vanished, everyone else in the room changed positions slightly, as if I was watching a video and pressed the skip button. You’ve been 「erasing time」, haven’t you?”

Sigma began to chuckle. “I’m surprised you noticed this quickly, honestly. You’re every bit as skilled as they say… but it’s just as you’ve said. Whenever you come at me, I merely 「erase」 the next five seconds of time. During these five seconds, everything proceeds as normal—but only I am aware of what transpires during these five seconds.”

“So,” Bal interrupted, “you mean we all just lose our memories of what happens during those five seconds?”

“That’s not it,” came Sigma’s response. “You see, you never HAD any memories of that time, because, again, only I am conscious of it in the first place. Think of it like this: you’re walking forward amidst a crowd of people, and then you close your eyes for five seconds while continuing to walk. After five seconds, you open them again—everyone around you has moved, time has proceeded normally, but you have no idea of what happened during those five seconds.”

C, who was still there—much to the immense surprise of everyone in the room—spoke up this time.

“You mentioned the skip button on a remote control,” she chimed in. “If I’ve got this right, it’s the 「results」, correct?”

Sigma merely nodded.

“I thought so,” continued C. “What happens is that the five seconds for which your ability is active still happen, but the rest of us, who are not aware of what transpires during those five seconds, are only aware of the 「results」 of what happens. Think of it this way as well—Bal, say Ken goes to toss you a water bottle, but Sigma activates his ability. The next five seconds are erased, but afterwards, Bal, you find yourself holding the water bottle. You know that Ken threw it to you, but you don’t actually remember him throwing it, because, as far as you’re concerned, that never actually happened.”

All of a sudden, Bal realized the full implications of what Sigma had done. If he had wanted to, Sigma could have ended it with one strike during the erased time. All it would have taken would be a blade to the throat, or a stab to the heart—and Bal would have been powerless to do anything to stop it.

Absolute control over time… what a terrifyingly fearsome power.

“So this is the extent of the Horizon’s power,” spoke Bal, his voice shaky. “I get it now… my power and your ‘power’ are on completely different dimensions.” He sheathed his God Arc and faced Sigma once more. “You win… I concede this match. It’s your victory.”

Sigma looked back at Bal. “Now you see, do you not? This is what it means to be touched by the Horizon.”

“Right,” came Bal’s response. “Now I see why you want us all to go there with you. Right… that settles it. I’ll do whatever it takes to get stronger. My power might not be as great as yours, Sigma… but I’ll show you, I’ll prove to you that my determination won’t lose to yours or anyone’s!”

Sigma laughed, a faint laugh that barely showed on his face.

“That’s the spirit,” Sigma spoke. “Now… do the rest of you understand what you’ll be getting yourselves into? Obtaining the Horizon’s power will not be easy, but the payoff will be more than worth it when it comes to fighting Feldman.”

Everyone in the room nodded.

“And with that in mind,” Sigma continued, “you have three days to prepare for the departure. Come hell or high water…”

“…we WILL take that bastard down!”


	31. Beoblade's Resolve, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Force prepares for the road ahead, while Beoblade receives an unexpected visitation.

“So what are you gonna do, sir?”  
A day had passed. Here, Beoblade was reminiscing in the lounge of the Liverpool Branch, when he was met by Kaitlin, who exited the elevator and walked towards him.

“Hm?” came Beo’s reply. “How do you mean?”

“Well…” answered Kaitlin, “Sigma showed us a bit of the Horizon’s power firsthand yesterday. Supposing we do succeed in obtaining that power for ourselves, well… what are you gonna do with it?”

Beo stood up and faced Kaitlin. “Isn’t it obvious? Feldman dies. As soon as we all obtain the power of the Horizon, we wait for Feldman to show up and we kick his ass!”

Kaitlin giggled. “That’s a given… I meant after that, though. What are your plans after Feldman’s gone?”

“You know the answer to that better than anyone,” Beo scoffed. “I’ll gather an army of followers and kill each and every last Aragami on this planet! That way…”

“‘That way’ what?”

“That way… no one will ever have to suffer again,” came Beo’s forlorn reply. “I… we’ve already lost so much, both individually and as a species. I don’t want anyone else to die as a result of Aragami attacks, Kaitlin. You know that.”

Kaitlin merely nodded, placing her hand on Beo’s shoulder. “I know… and I will stop at nothing to help you achieve your goals. That’s why I’m here, after all.”

Beo smiled, a slight grin displayed across his face. “It’s certainly reassuring to have you here by my side, Kaitlin. Together, there’s nothing we can’t—”

But Beo did not finish his sentence, as without Kaitlin seeing anything, he was gone, as if he simply ceased to exist. From before Kaitlin’s attentive gaze, Beo had completely vanished.

“Sir…?” murmured Kaitlin. “Beoblade… sir? Where did you go…?”

***

“Where… am I?”

All around Beo, there was nothing but black. It was an all-permeating darkness, with not a single speck of light anywhere to be seen.

Beo held out his hands in front of him but saw nothing. He could still feel himself, however—

—and he could also tell that he was standing on solid ground. He could not see it, but he was upright.

“What the hell is going on…?”

:: _Walk forward, Thomas Beoblade._

A voice cut through the darkness, as though it spoke directly into Beo’s head.

“Who was that!?”

:: _You must advance, Thomas Beoblade. If your resolve is true… then advance, and prove yourself._

Which way was “forward,” though? With nothing but darkness, Beo’s sense of direction was nonexistent.

All of a sudden, though, out of the corner of Beo’s periphery, a tiny speck of light lit up—an infinitesimally small yet infinitely brilliant point of pale blue light that gradually spread horizontally outwards, becoming a long blue line that stretched infinitely in either direction.

Almost like—

“The Horizon,” Beo muttered. “This must be it… the Horizon. Sigma never told us what it looked like… but I can tell. This is something the likes of humanity has never, ever seen before.”

:: _Now, advance._

Beo didn’t need to be told twice. Placing one foot steadily in front of the other, Beo gradually took step after step towards the boundary line of the Horizon, until—

“And where do you think you’re going?”

A voice—a different voice, for Beo could actually hear this one— called out to him from behind. But this—

“That’s MY voice!”

Beo whirled around and came face-to-face with… himself?!

“Who are you?” demanded Beo, facing his doppelgänger. “No… WHAT are you?!”

“I am you, Thomas Beoblade,” came the reply of the alternate Beo. “I am everything you strive to be. I am the you who has achieved everything he has sought out to do, who has become the person he has truly wished to become… and unless you can prove that your current power is enough to achieve those dreams, you won’t be taking another step towards the Horizon.”

Beo stared at his alternate self, perplexed. 

“Either you’re just my mind playing tricks on me, or—”

Beo’s words were cut off by a bullet grazing his cheek. From behind the alternate Beo, hundreds of God Eaters had appeared, each brandishing their God Arcs and ready for battle. The alternate Beo himself drew, or rather materialized, his own God Arc, a black version of Beo’s own…

…which was conspicuously absent.

“How am I supposed to prove my power to you if I don’t have my damn God Arc?” he demanded.

“Whatever do you mean?” came the reply of the alternate Beo. “It’s right there. You’ve had it with you ever since you arrived here. But the fact that you can’t see it, well… your resolve must be pretty pitiful.”

“The HELL do you mean by that?!” shouted Beo to his alternate self. “Where do you get off telling me that my resolve isn’t strong enough?!”

“It’s quite simple, really,” the alternate Beo responded. “The fact that you can’t perceive your own God Arc here in the Horizon means that you aren’t truly willing to do whatever it takes to actualize your goals. And if that’s the case, you might as well die right here, because you have no business existing if you can’t even do that much!”

With those words, the alternate Beo and his army of God Eaters charged at Beo, who stood there, looking pensive.

“You might be right,” he muttered. “Maybe my resolve isn’t strong enough… but like hell that means I’m going to sit back and do nothing and let that bastard Feldman destroy everyone precious to me with his Boundary Aragami! I came this far relying on my own strength, with my dreams to guide me… and that hasn’t changed one bit! Like hell I’ll stop here! You’re gonna get out of my way, and I’m going to walk towards my dreams—”

And as the alternate Beo closed in…

_“—towards a future where no one else has to die!!!”_

A resounding clash could be heard, as the alternate Beo’s God Arc was met with the cold steel of Beo’s own, which had materialized in his hands and parried the alternate Beo’s strike.

“My strength is my power,” proclaimed Beo. “And the lives of everyone precious to me… the lives of everyone on this planet… _**they’re my strength!!”**_

“Alright…” mused the alternate Beo, assuming a stance with his God Arc held at the ready. “Now we’re talking. **Show me what you’ve got, _me!_** ”


	32. Beoblade's Resolve, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beoblade's struggle inside the Horizon is brought to a decisive conclusion.

Blades clashed and clashed as Beo locked swords with his mirror image over and over again. This was a decisive battle in more ways than one—since Beo knew all his own moves, his mirror image was always one step away from him… and this was a battle with everything on the line, with all of Beo’s hopes and dreams for the future at stake.   
No matter what, he HAD to win this. For himself and for everyone he held dear.

With a particularly resonant clash, Beo and his alternate self dashed apart, both showing signs of fatigue.

“You’re pretty strong,” Beo exclaimed. “Just what I’d expect from me!”

“Of course,” came his mirror image’s flippant reply. “I am you, after all!”

As the two of them charged at each other again, blades ready to clash once more, a shot rang out. Beo barely managed to deploy his shield in time before countless more shots pelted him from multiple angles, pushing him back.

“What the hell is this?!” Beo called out at his doppelgänger. “I’d say this is hardly fair!”

“Fair?” came the alternate Beo’s reply. “Of course this is fair! This is the army of followers you gather in order to rid the world of Aragami once and for all! You’re fighting against your perfect, ideal self, so it would go to figure that you’d have to go up against them, wouldn’t it?”

“True enough,” Beo responded. “Have at you!”

With fierce decisiveness, Beo dashed towards one side of the array of soldiers and slashed, scattering their ranks and laying them low. Without missing a beat, Beo dashed through the ranks of soldiers, slashing left and right while keeping his distance from the alternate Beo.

Before too long, all of them had been laid out—but Beo himself had seen better days. A handful of bullets and blade attacks here and there had landed, and he had suffered a bit of damage himself. But still… there was no way he’d lose here! He had his life, his dreams, ahead of him; he could not afford to fall here, not with everything he stood for on the line!

But no matter how hard he tried, Beo just couldn’t pierce his doppelgänger’s defense. They were evenly matched in almost every way… but Beo was injured, and the alternate Beo was beginning to gain the upper hand. He had to act fast, or else…!!

“Think, Thomas,” Beo thought to himself. “What would ‘you’ do? What would ‘you’ not expect… wait, that’s it!”

Before Beo could react, he was knocked to his knees by a fierce blow, with the alternate Beo upon him, ready to deliver a decisive blow—

—but the doppelgänger’s thrust was met with Beo’s arm, the blade piercing through his forearm and halting instantly.

“You…” the alternate Beo growled. “You know yourself better than you think you do, hm?”

“I suppose so,” winced Beo, readying his God Arc for the final strike—

—as he ran the alternate Beo through the heart with his blade, stopping him where he stood.

As Beo’s doppelgänger slumped to the ground, he gasped out some last words.

“Why…” he began, “didn’t you use… your Blood Art…?”

“Why didn’t YOU?” came Beo’s simple response.

“Haha… ahahahahahahahaha!” The alternate Beo began to laugh, a hearty laugh interspersed with sputters of blood, blood that was a bright blue and seemed to glow with the color of the Horizon.

“I guess… you have what it takes after all…”

And with those words, the alternate Beo faded away, his body dissolving to dust and scattering to some unseen, unfelt wind along with the bodies of his hundreds of soldiers.

“So… so that’s it?” Beo slumped to the ground, worn out from his battle.

:: _No, not yet._

There was that voice again.

“What do you mean, ‘not yet?’”

:: _You have proven yourself worthy. Now, step forth and forge a contract._

Oh, right, Beo thought. This must have been what Sigma was referring to.

Placing one weary foot in front of the other, Beo marched slowly forward, until the light of the Horizon engulfed him completely and he stood bathed in ethereal blue light.

:: _Now speak the words, Thomas Beoblade._

No longer was there any doubt left in Beo’s mind.

“Horizon!” he called out with every fiber of his being. “I want power! Power to save those precious to me, power to destroy the Aragami, and power to lead this world towards a future where no one else has to die!”

:: _Good. Now close your eyes…_

Beo did as instructed, closing his eyes—

—and then it happened.

The feeling was akin to a powerful electrical vibration spreading from his spine outwards, followed by a sensation not unlike a mighty shiver. Beo could feel his senses expanding outwards, being elevated until he was aware of his own presence before him, looking down at himself from outside his own body. And then, as he descended downwards towards himself—

***

Sigma stood alone atop the landing pad of the Liverpool Branch. According to everyone else, Beoblade had vanished, disappearing all of a sudden before Kaitlin’s eyes with no indication where he had gone or how he had managed to disappear.

Sigma had his suspicions, though. In all likelihood, the Horizon had taken notice of him and plucked him up so that he could prove his determination and make a contract of his own. Sigma wondered how his battle went—if Sigma’s own experience was any indication, Beo would have had to fight against a representation of himself having achieved his ultimate goals, and, at least for Sigma, that wasn’t an easy experience.

At any rate, though, he should be arriving back soon, unless his battle lasted longer than expected, or he died in the process…

Sigma’s thoughts were interrupted by a familiar feeling, a ripple in the fabric of space-time that spread outwards like the surface of a lake disturbed by a pebble breaking its surface.

“So you’ve finally returned, eh, Beo?” Sigma called out as a portal opened in the air behind him, sending Beo tumbling out rather ungracefully.

“I’m still getting used to my new powers, to be honest,” came Beo’s reply, “so I’ve gotta apologize for my rather pitiful entrance.”

Sigma turned to look at his guest. “How does it feel?” he inquired of the newly-arrived Beo.

“It’s amazing,” Beo answered. “It’s damn incredible, honestly. It’s like my sense of awareness, my entire being, has been elevated up to a plane above this one, like I’m aware of everything and everyone at once.”

“You’ll get used to that feeling eventually,” affirmed Sigma. “But for now, though… what do you say to a little challenge?”

Beo’s ears were piqued. “Oh? Do go on.”

“I won’t attack you or even act, but I will make every attempt to dodge or otherwise negate your attacks. I want you to do everything in your power to land a single hit on me. There’s no winning or losing here, and nothing’s at stake. I just want to see how much your power has—”

Sigma did not finish his sentence—or rather, he COULD not, for the blade of Beo’s God Arc was upon him, the cold steel of its blade fixed at Sigma’s throat. Sigma had not seen Beo move—and indeed, he had not. He was still standing where he had been, approximately seven meters away, but somehow, there he was, standing in front of Sigma with his blade held at Sigma’s throat.

“Impressive,” Sigma mused, cracking his neck. “How did you manage that?”

“I don’t know…” came Beo’s reply. “I just tried expanding my sphere of awareness, trying to stretch my consciousness outwards as far as I could, and then, well… that happened.”

“I see…” Sigma interjected. “Quantum superpositioning, is that it? There’s still only one of you, yet somehow you’ve managed to locate yourself in two places at once. Truly a formidable power.”

“And that’s not all,” spoke Beo. “I feel like if I tried, I’d be able to increase the range even further and appear in even more places at once.”

“It would stand to reason that this would be the case,” Sigma answered. “For now, though, get some rest… but first, you should let everyone know you’ve returned.”

Beo nodded, departing towards the elevator.

With this, surely the battle against Feldman wouldn’t be that difficult. Now, their victory was as good as assured.

With the hope of everyone to guide them... victory would be theirs!


End file.
